Hazard
by Enthusiastic Fish
Summary: Extremely AU story based on the song "Hazard" by Richard Marx. Who killed Mary? And how does that fit in with Tim's mysterious past? Features the season 2 team (plus Rachel Cranston and Stan Burley). Complete.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Okay, this story needs some background. First of all, it's _extremely_ AU. It is based on a song by Richard Marx called "Hazard". (Take a wild guess as to where the title came from. :) It's a very dark song and the music video is also very dark. The story fits that tone. The first time I heard the song, it really got into my head (back in the nineties). A few months ago, I heard it again and I thought that there was a story to be told there because Richard Marx has never said who killed Mary. So I decided to fit the NCIS characters into the plot and solve the mystery myself. That means that everyone is a bit different and Tim is _really_ different from how he is on the show, but I have tried to fit what I see as the essence of the characters into the AU nature of the story.

Long story short: If you don't like AU stories, you will _not_ like this story. It's unabashedly AU, and it's very long, but unlike _Non sibi, sed patri_ , it's already finished. :)

 **Disclaimer:** I do not own "Hazard". That belongs to Richard Marx. I do not own NCIS or its characters. I'm not making money on it. I'm just having some fun...in that twisted I have. :)

* * *

 **Hazard  
** by Enthusiastic Fish

 **Chapter 1**

"There you go, McGee. Get out. I'll be watching you."

Tim looked at Sheriff Drake and then looked out the window. The sheriff was waiting for him to say something about the view, Tim knew. He wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.

"Yeah. Just like you watched Mary," he said, bitterly.

Then, he got out of the police car, slammed the door closed as hard as he thought he could get away with and looked at what remained of his home. A burned-out shell. The sheriff drove away.

He sighed. It wasn't like he had anything valuable to lose, but this had been the only thing that was his in the world. The town had taken it from him, leaving him nothing. No family, no home.

No Mary.

He stared at the charred and burned building. Then, he sighed again. Nothing to do but to look and see if there was anything salvageable from it. It wasn't likely, but there was a possibility. He couldn't afford the risk of missing something.

He climbed into the house. The whole porch had burned.

He looked around. It looked like there was nothing left. He had nothing.

The small ranch home had been all he and his mother had been able to afford when they'd come here in his childhood. He knew that there was very little worth keeping. It hadn't been a nice house twenty years ago. It probably hadn't _ever_ been a nice house. It had only become worse with time. Cosmetic repairs were beyond what Tim could afford and he wasn't very handy. So the house had degraded. Probably, the townspeople had done him a favor in destroying it.

He kept telling himself that.

He walked through the tiny living room. The sofa bed where he'd slept was nothing but melted plastic and blackened metal springs. The old TV was melted into a plastic shell. So was the computer. It had been old, but he had taught himself on it, and there was no way he could afford another. His meager earnings hadn't allowed him to save much. He walked into the kitchen.

There was more metal in here; so there was more that had survived the blaze. Not that it mattered. He saw the broken dishes. They'd clearly had fun breaking what wouldn't burn. Could his life be any worse? Tim didn't think so. It had already been bad for more years than he could count...and it had just got worse.

He walked out of the kitchen, through the living room to the only bedroom in the house. It was his mother's room. He had never slept in there, not even after his mother had died. He rarely even went into the room. It felt wrong. Now, he went in and saw that the fire had burned some of it, too, but it was strangely less-damaged than the rest of the house. Maybe the closed door had made a difference. He walked over to the remains of the bedside table. On the floor was a picture frame, he knelt down. The photo inside had been blackened, but somehow hadn't burned. He had no idea how that had happened.

It was a family. A family that really had never existed, but he still had the picture to support the lie of that family. All he had left of his life was a lie. He sat down on the floor and looked at it for a long time.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Hey, Boss, we got a call about something in Hazard."

Gibbs looked up from his desk and raised an eyebrow at Tony.

"Hazard?"

"About an hour away."

"Why there?"

Tony shrugged. "There was a murder few days ago."

"Heard they arrested someone already."

"He was released. No real evidence, I guess, but everyone says he's guilty as sin."

Gibbs waited. When Tony didn't continue, he gestured.

"And?"

"Right. And there was a suggestion that he might have been railroaded, that there's more going on than it seems."

"Who's making the suggestion?"

"The guy who runs the city morgue."

"What?"

Tony hitched himself onto the desk, happy to explain.

"One Dr. Donald Mallard. He says that the guy who was arrested has been shunned by the town for years and they were all wanting to pin this on him, no matter what was found."

"What did the sheriff say about this?"

"Well, Dr. Mallard said that the sheriff was the worst of the bunch."

"Oh." Now, it was becoming clear. This man didn't seem to want to make an outright accusation against the sheriff, but he wanted something to be done. "We have clearance to go?"

"Yep. Already asked Morrow about it and he said he'd allow it for now. I believe he said that we were supposed to try to avoid stepping on anyone's toes."

"Yeah, right." He looked at the paperwork on his desk. He hated filling out reports. He was happy to put them off in lieu of looking into whatever this was. "Well, let's go."

"Right behind you, Boss," Tony said with a grin.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

After a while, he heard a car pull up to the house. He wondered what the sheriff would want now. To arrest him again? Maybe they were coming to make sure he had no choice but to leave. Maybe they were ready to force him. He wouldn't be surprised. They'd been waiting for a chance like this.

 _Why am I staying here, anyway? I hate this place._

But he knew why, and there was nowhere else to go.

"Timothy? Are you in here?"

Tim sighed and got up, tucking the photo into his pocket. He walked back to the front and saw Ducky standing on the ground, looking inside.

"I heard you'd been released."

"What are you doing here?" Tim asked.

"I'm sorry about this, Timothy."

Tim let out a humorless laugh. "Unless you were one of the people wielding a torch and a pitchfork, you have nothing to be sorry about."

"I'm still sorry."

Tim scoffed at him. "Well, thanks. You said what you had to say. You can go home. I'm already home."

"What are you going to do now?"

"I don't know. I don't think I'll get very good resale value on this place."

"No, probably not."

Tim jumped down to the ground and looked over. They hadn't burned out his junker of a car although they'd left their mark in other ways.

 _MURDERER! FREAK!_

"Do you think they got it out of their system now?" Tim asked. "Seems like they were happy to leave my car in good condition. I guess that's their way of saying they want me gone."

" _Will_ you leave?"

Another laugh. "Where would I go, Ducky? I don't have any money. I don't have much education, and I certainly am not going to get any referrals from anyone in this place. ...and when they search in my background they'll find..." Tim shook his head, not willing to bring that up. "I still own this land. It's _mine_. They can't take it away."

Ducky looked at him shrewdly but didn't ask him to elaborate on what he hadn't said. Ducky was the closest thing to a friend he had in this stinking hole.

Now that Mary was dead.

"I didn't ask you to help me, Ducky," Tim said. "I didn't ask you to come here."

"I know you didn't. You never ask. However, I am _offering_ my help if you'll accept it. You can't stay here."

"Why not? The roof hasn't collapsed yet."

"Timothy, come and stay the night at my home."

Tim looked at his house and then looked back at Ducky. He didn't want to say it out loud. He didn't want to ask the question.

It slipped out anyway.

"She was there. In the morgue. Wasn't she."

"Yes."

The false bravado vanished. "I swear that I didn't do anything to her, Ducky. The last time I saw her, she was alive. I wouldn't have ever..."

"I know that, Timothy."

Tim took a deep breath. He hadn't seen her body, but he knew where they'd found her.

In the river.

"Come. There is nothing to be gained by staying here."

Tim finally nodded. He had nothing to gather up. No possessions. So he followed Ducky to his car and got in. They drove to Ducky's house on the other side of town.

"You know, they might decide to take it out on you for being nice to me," Tim said.

"I'm not worried."

"Congratulations," Tim said.

He got out of the car and followed Ducky inside.

"Have a seat there, lad. I'll make dinner."

"I don't need dinner."

"Yes, you do. You may choose not to eat it, but you do need it."

Tim stalked over to the couch and plunked himself down on it. He heard Ducky puttering around in the kitchen and he let his mind wander through his whole miserable life.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 _Twenty years ago..._

"Why do we have to move here?" Tim asked as they drove into the town. "I don't like the way this place looks. It feels wrong."

"Tim, you know why we have to move here," his mother said.

"I told you that I didn't do anything!"

"I know, and I told you I believed you."

"Then, why did we have to leave?"

His mother sighed and kept driving.

Tim looked resentfully out the window at the bland landscape and didn't feel any better when they pulled up to a small, rundown house.

"Here we are, Tim. Our new home. Let's make the best of it."

Tim got out of the car and walked up the steps to the porch. He felt weird about being here. In fact, he hadn't felt right ever since his dad had left them...and then...what happened after. He tried to be brave. Even when people had said he was at the house when it burned. He hadn't said anything.

...but he still felt weird. Nothing was right anymore.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

That night, and a lot of nights after, he had nightmares. He started screaming for help and when it didn't come, he ran out of the house, still screaming.

"I won't tell!" he screamed. "Help! I don't want to burn!"

Then, in the middle of the road, he felt his mother's arms around him.

"Sh, sh. It's okay. It's okay. Wake up. You're all right. It's just a dream."

She was rocking him back and forth, trying to calm him down. He cried and cried, even after she got him back to the house, telling him over and over that it was just a dream.

He knew they were dreams, but they weren't _just_ dreams. Even at seven years old, Tim knew they were more than just dreams. They were more. He just didn't know how much more. He still never felt right, and it manifested itself in strange behaviors that he couldn't seem to control. He would try to be normal, but he couldn't.

At school, when they were told to draw, he would usually end up with something strange and disturbing. Like his dreams.

"Tim, what is that?"

"It's a fire monster," Tim said. "He's eating the house and the people in it."

"Why?"

"That's what the fire monster has to do. He doesn't get to choose. He eats people. The middle of the fire is where they get digested. Just like in our stomachs only with fire. They get melted down. Black and stuff."

"Tim, that's terrible."

The other kids thought he was strange and avoided him as much as possible.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Hello, Mrs. McGee."

"Hello, Officer Drake," Tim heard his mother say.

"You're looking very nice today."

"Thank you."

She started to walk back to the house, but the officer followed her, talking to her, trying to act like...like Daddy had with...

Tim ran outside and started pushing at Officer Drake.

"Leave Momma alone! Leave her alone! Don't touch her!"

"Tim! Stop that!" his mother said. "Don't be rude."

Tim still pushed at the officer. "Leave her alone!" he said, shrilly.

He couldn't explain why, but he didn't like it when Officer Drake came around and made those faces at his mother. It was like Daddy. It was like Daddy and Tim didn't like that.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

As he got older, he learned to curb some of the stranger things, but he couldn't suppress it all. It would come out in fits of anger that he couldn't explain. He just got mad without knowing why, but no one would ever ask him to explain. They just said he was a troublemaker.

He still drew, but the drawings hadn't become any less disturbing. The art teacher kicked him out of her class after the second week. The only other elective left to him was the computer class. It was fine. There was nothing distressing about that class, and he seemed to be pretty good at it. The computer teacher didn't like him, either, but at least, there he could do the work without feeling the need to lash out. He worked alone and excelled as he did in every class he took. ...well, _almost_ every class. Only P.E. kept him from a straight 4.0. No one noticed.

One day, he was sitting outside the school, drawing.

"Hey, freak."

Tim looked up at the group. They were all there, staring at him, staring at the drawing he'd made of a monster stomping on a house with people screaming inside. The monster had flames coming out of his eyes and his mouth. Alan was the leader. Officer Drake's son. He was always the leader. Tim hated him.

"Hey, idiot," he said back and kept drawing.

Alan pushed him over, and Tim was instantly on the offensive. He started fighting. The problem was that he was pretty scrawny and he just couldn't keep it up. He got thrashed.

And then, he got in trouble because all the kids said he'd started it. No one believed him when he said it wasn't his fault. He saw Alan gloating and hated him all the more.

His mother came to pick him up from school, but instead of lecturing him or taking him home, she drove out to the river on the edge of town. They walked down to the edge of the river and sat by the water.

"Tim, you can't keep doing this."

"I didn't start it."

"I know, but you can't fight the world."

"I don't know _what_ I'm fighting," Tim said softly. "I wish I did."

His mother held out the crumpled picture he'd drawn.

"What is this?"

"A picture."

"What is it, Tim?"

"It's just a picture. I feel better when I draw."

"Even something like this?"

"Yes. Especially stuff like that."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

His mother sighed, and Tim wished he knew, but he didn't. He couldn't explain it to himself, let alone to his mother. Never to his mother. He stood up and walked into the river a few steps. Then, he leaned over and searched in the mud until he found a rock. He flung it and watched as it skipped across the surface of the water. He liked skipping rocks. It reminded him of... Quickly, he shut down that thought.

He wasn't as angry as he had been. Something about the river made him feel better. Like his drawing did, only in a different way. His drawing made him less angry but more confused. The river was just...quiet.

After that day, he started coming to the river a lot. After school, instead of staying at the school and drawing until his mother was done with work, he would run to the river and sit. He didn't always feel like he needed to draw. The water made him feel better... He felt safe by the river.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

He graduated from high school, but he didn't go to college. There was very little money to spare, and no one at the school cared to help strange Timothy McGee with anything. They were just glad that he was gone. No one noticed his high grades. They just noticed his strange drawings, his angry outbursts, and they were relieved that there was an A- to keep him from being valedictorian.

So, after high school, he stayed with his mother. They managed to scrimp and save and buy a computer. He started tinkering with computers and, after a year or two, he started repairing other people's computers in Hazard. They didn't really _want_ the strange kid to come into their houses, but he was always quick and he always did it right. So they paid him and hoped for nothing to go wrong, necessitating another call to Tim McGee. It wasn't much, but it was something.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Then, his mother died. It was a shock. He woke up one morning on the sofa bed, but she didn't. She was dead in her bedroom. Someone had called it an aneurysm.

Tim was shocked into numbness. He sat on the couch while people went in and out, not knowing what to do or what to say. So he said nothing. He did nothing. There was no anger. There was no grief. There was nothing. He just coasted for a while on a tide of numbness, not knowing how to react to his mother being dead. He didn't notice how his lack of reaction was analyzed by the other people in town. He had no friends, and now, he had no family, either.

The nightmares came back with a vengeance. They didn't lead to him running out of the house, but he would scream in his sleep. He couldn't get rid of his mother's bedroom. He left it the way it was and kept sleeping out on the couch. He kept the door closed and didn't go inside.

No one knew because no one cared. They only saw that he didn't cry.

Just one more indication that Tim McGee wasn't right.

Some even suggested, in hushed voices, that maybe it _wasn't_ an aneurysm that had killed Margaret McGee.

Others hoped that he would finally leave Hazard, but while Tim hated the town, he had nowhere to go. He had no real experience with any other place in the world. For him, this was all there was and, even while hating the place and being hated by those in it, it was the closest thing he had to a home. He tried not to think about it, tried not to think about the fire, tried not to think about his mother lying so still in her bed. Not moving, not breathing.

Time went by, but he barely noticed it.

...until Mary came back to Hazard.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim was sitting by the river, remembering the times when it had been enough to calm him. It didn't seem to help, now.

He looked up and there she was. Mary Fields. He'd never spoken to her before. She'd moved in during high school, but Tim was already ostracized by then and he didn't try to change that. She hadn't noticed him.

But she was standing by the river, staring at the water. He stared at her. She was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, like a goddess, a naiad. He could almost have said that she was rising out of the water from another world. She certainly didn't belong in a place like Hazard.

Suddenly, she looked up from the water and looked at him. Caught staring, his face reddened, and he got to his feet and ran back home. But it was the first time he'd really noticed another human being since his mother had died.

For the next few days, when he drew, he found himself drawing, not the monster that had so dominated most of his life, but Mary. Mary standing by the river. He took days to draw her, wanting to capture that image he'd had of her.

Then, one day, he went back to the river and sat, staring at the water.

"You're Tim McGee, aren't you?"

He jumped at the voice, a kind voice, a voice that wasn't suspicious or accusing or fearful. It was so unexpected that it was almost a shock. He looked up.

It was Mary.

"Hi," he said, feeling nervous.

She smiled and sat down by him.

"I'm Mary."

"I know who you are."

"You do? How?"

"You moved in during high school. We were in some of the same classes."

"Really? I never saw you."

"I hid in the back of the room...or else the teachers hid me back there so that I wasn't visible."

"Why?"

Tim shrugged.

"You left after graduation. What are you doing back here?" he asked.

Now, it was Mary's turn to shrug.

"Things change."

"Not around here, they don't," Tim said.

She smiled.

"It's not that bad."

"Yeah, it is."

"Then, why don't you leave?"

"Nowhere to go," Tim said.

The usual wrong feeling that had faded when Mary had come over to him rose up again. He got to his feet.

"I've got to go," he said and hurried away.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

He actually had work to do for the next few days and that kept him away from the river, but it called him back as it always did.

Tim walked along the bank.

"Can I join you?"

He looked behind him and there she was.

"Are you sure you want to?" he asked.

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't," she said with a smile.

A strange, foreign feeling came over him and he found himself smiling at her. He didn't remember the last time he'd felt like smiling.

"Sure," he said.

They walked together, talking about what they'd do with their lives if they could do whatever they wanted. Tim talked about going to college, about leaving Hazard behind and finding a new life. Mary talked about freedom. They found comfort in each other, in their mutual dislike of the town. She never asked why he'd come here. He never asked why she'd come back.

It became a routine for them. At sunset they would both come to the river together and walk while the sun sank below the horizon. Then, they would go their separate ways. The more time he spent with her, the more that feeling stayed with him, even when they weren't together. He realized what it was.

Happiness.

No one had ever made him feel happy, not since they'd had to come to Hazard all those years ago. No one, not even his mother.

One day, she was there waiting for him when he got there. She wasn't happy.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"Okay."

They walked together in silence for a while.

"What's this scarf you're always wearing?" Mary asked. "Don't you get hot?"

Tim looked at it. It was so much a part of him that he barely even thought about it. He didn't even know where it had come from. It definitely wasn't new. He didn't have _anything_ new. He couldn't imagine not wearing it, though.

"It's...a scarf," he said. "I don't really remember where I got it. I just wear it."

"I like it. It suits you," she said with a smile.

"It's just a scarf. It doesn't suit anyone."

"It suits you," Mary said.

Tim looked at the scarf and then took it off and wound it loosely around Mary's neck. He moved her around and then stared. He moved her again and looked from a different angle, feigned intense concentration for a moment and then shook his head and took it back.

"You're right. It doesn't suit you," he said.

Mary laughed.

"You know...people in town say I should be afraid of you. They say that you're dangerous."

"Yeah, I know," Tim said, his smile fading. He walked a few steps ahead of her, thinking that she was about to say that she agreed, that this was good-bye. He'd expected it.

"But I'm not afraid."

He stopped and turned around.

"You're not?"

"No. I'm not afraid of you. You're different, but you're not dangerous."

"Maybe I am."

She shook her head.

"No, Tim. You're not. I don't think you'd hurt a flea."

"I would if one bit me."

She laughed again and then kissed him on the cheek. Before he could react, before he could decide _how_ he would react, she looked over his shoulder and her smile faded.

"I have to go, Tim."

She ran off. Tim turned around to see what she was looking at, but he didn't see anything other than a brief flash of light.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"What do you think you're doing, McGee?"

Tim looked over. He'd stopped to stare at a shed on a small lot by itself. He wondered who it belonged to. Funny, but he'd never known, and in a place like Hazard, it was hard not to know everything about everyone. Even Tim knew most of what there was to know. And that was with everyone avoiding him like the plague.

"Walking home, Sheriff Drake," he said. He still couldn't suppress that visceral reaction he'd had to the sheriff as a child. He hated the man...and the feeling was mutual.

"Right. Where have you been?"

"He was helping me."

The new voice startled both of them.

"Ducky?" Sheriff Drake asked.

"I'd asked Mr. McGee, here, to look at my computer. It took longer than I expected and he didn't want a ride home. I was a little concerned, though."

"So he's been at your place?"

"Yes, Sheriff. He has."

"All right, then." Sheriff Drake gave Tim a warning glance and then got back into his car and drove away.

Tim watched him go and then looked at Ducky.

"You just lied. I haven't been at your place. I've _never_ been to your place. You lied. To the sheriff."

"That's true. I did."

"Why?"

"Because it occurred to me that the sheriff doesn't seem to like you very much."

"No one likes me very much, Dr. Mallard. In fact, no one likes me at all. The sheriff is just a little worse is all."

He turned and started walking again.

"Wait, Mr. McGee."

The formal address felt like someone was dragging their nails across a chalkboard. He hated it as much as he hated the sheriff. It was the same visceral reaction. Tim stiffened.

"Don't call me that. My dad was Mr. McGee. I'm _not_ him," Tim said, the bad feeling getting stronger.

"My apologies, Timothy."

Tim didn't like the way he felt. He wanted to leave, but for some reason, he couldn't make himself start walking. Maybe it was because Ducky wasn't looking at him with that all-too-familiar expression of distaste.

"I did have a reason for being here," Ducky said.

"What's that?"

"I was looking for you."

"Why?" Tim asked, feeling wary.

"Because the morgue computers are woefully behind the times and I'd like to bring them into the present day. However, I'm not very knowledgeable about such things and I understand you are."

"You're offering me work?"

"Yes. If you have the time."

The way he said it told Tim that he was very much aware of how little work Tim got, how much time he had. Still, Tim wasn't sure he wanted to go into the morgue. That was where his mother had ended up. Dead people were in the morgue. He didn't like being confronted with death. Still, he didn't feel that he could say no.

"Okay. Tomorrow?"

"Yes, thank you."

Tim turned and walked away, but he started running after a few steps. He wanted to get away from the feeling he'd had there.

He forgot about the shed for weeks.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Working for Ducky ended up taking months. Every time Tim finished one task, Ducky would have something else for him to do. He would usually insist on feeding Tim at least one meal during the day. Tim thought about refusing the obvious charity, but he couldn't deny that he needed the money, and he _was_ working for it.

All in all, things were actually looking up slightly.

...until that night...


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

 _Present..._

"Timothy?"

Tim sat up with a start. Getting lost in the past was not something he really wanted. It was far too easy, though.

"What is it, Ducky?"

"Dinner, if you're interested."

Tim took a breath and nodded. He _was_ hungry. He couldn't deny that. He hadn't eaten since the unsatisfying breakfast they'd fed him at the jail. So he walked into the kitchen and ate with Ducky. He didn't say anything. He just ate and then left the table. He went back into the living room and slumped down onto the couch.

A few minutes later, Ducky joined him.

"Timothy?"

Tim stared at the floor. The voice was too kind, and Tim's nerves were too raw. He couldn't hide how he felt right now. There was nothing to hide behind.

"I don't have anything left, Ducky," he said. "I have nowhere to go, nothing to do. What little I had, they took from me. I have nothing."

Ducky was going to comfort him, but Tim knew from years of experience that comfort didn't mean anything. He stood up.

"I was mad at her. I really was. I saw her with...and I got mad at her. She said she wanted to explain, but I didn't want to hear it. I pushed her. I shoved her away, as hard as I could. Then, I ran. It was just like I thought. She was the first person to...to mean something to me, and then, she showed me that I didn't mean anything to her. ...and then, she was dead. She's gone just like everyone else. Gone forever."

Tim sat down.

"There's nothing," he said again.

"You can always stay here, Timothy."

Tim couldn't be grateful right now, not for anything. He just nodded and lay back on the couch. After a few minutes of silence, he heard Ducky get up and leave the room. He couldn't think of what he'd do, now.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"I don't like small towns," Tony said as they reached the Hazard city limits.

"Why not?"

"There's nothing to do."

"I grew up in a small town," Gibbs said.

"Did you like it?"

"Yep."

"So much that you left?"

Gibbs shrugged.

"So...where to, first, Boss? The sheriff or this Dr. Mallard?"

"Dr. Mallard. Better to know what reason he had for asking us to look into it."

"Okay."

They drove to a nicely-kept house on the far side of town. All the houses in the little neighborhood were neat and tidy. Nothing ostentatious.

"This it?"

"This is the address," Tony said.

"All right. Let's go."

"Okay."

They both got out of the car and started for the front door. It opened before they got there and an older man came out. He had an expression of confusion and perhaps, a little wariness.

"Dr. Mallard?" Gibbs asked.

"Yes. Who are you?"

"Agents Gibbs and DiNozzo. We were sent over by the State Bureau of Investigation."

His eyes widened. "Oh. I have to confess that I'm surprised anything came of my request and even more surprised that you're here so soon."

"You want to tell us why you made the request in the first place?"

Ducky looked back toward the house and then nodded. "Would you be bothered if we talked in the backyard instead of inside the house?"

"Why?"

"I'm afraid that Timothy is inside and he doesn't know that I did this. He might not appreciate it."

"Why not?"

"Because Timothy's life has been miserable, and he has been given very few opportunities to believe that people care about him. I'd like to begin this process, at least, without his knowledge."

Tony looked at Gibbs and Gibbs just shrugged. Ducky led them around the house and gestured for them to sit on chairs on a small patio.

"Okay. What's this about, Dr. Mallard?"

"The short story is that I'm hoping you will investigate the murder of Mary Fields and find out who killed her."

"I take it you don't think it was Timothy McGee, then?"

"No. I don't. Timothy fears death too much to cause it. But even if I'm wrong and it _was_ him, the kinds of things that may happen in this town would not be justice and he would be better off facing the legal system than he would facing the townspeople who have already convicted him in their minds...and more obviously."

"More obviously?" Tony asked.

"Yes. The reason Timothy is here with me is because his home has been burned down."

"What?" Tony asked, aghast. "By who?"

"I couldn't tell you names, but a number of these upright, law-abiding citizens have taken it upon themselves to make sure Timothy is punished. He was arrested, but he's been released. That means he hasn't been punished. I'm afraid that the longer he remains free and they have no one else in custody, the more danger there is that they will resort to physical attacks. And the sheriff can't be bothered to find them out."

"Man, why doesn't he just leave the place?"

"He has nowhere to go, from what I understand. I suppose I could be wrong, but then, I only moved here about five years ago."

"Why did you come _here_?"

"Small-town life appeals to me after a long time in a large city," Ducky said with a smile. "They were in need of someone to run the morgue and I wanted a slower life. Most of my work here has been as a mortician, not as a medical examiner, and that's all to the good, as far as I'm concerned. I will admit that I accepted much of what I was told about Timothy as fact. His mother died shortly after I moved here and his demeanor was not that of a grieving son. Some even suspected that he killed his own mother."

"And?"

"She died of an aneurysm. I did the autopsy myself. Whatever else there was in his family life, his mother's death is not on his conscience. They were poor, always had been, apparently. No one knows why they moved here. Timothy was very young, but I was told that he seemed like a strange, disturbed child even then. That perception never changed, and their lot never really improved. His mother worked in the post office, but only made barely enough to live on. When Timothy finished high school, I was told that the town hoped he'd leave, but he didn't. It's likely because they were too poor, and no one cared about him, although Timothy is incredibly bright. He taught himself computer repair and is the only person in town able to keep everyone's computers running."

"So...what changed your mind?" Gibbs asked.

"Timothy himself...and Mary."

"How?"

"Mary moved back to Hazard three years ago. I don't know why. She seemed as unhappy about her return as Timothy was about his staying here. I suppose they found each other through that mutual unhappiness. One day, I was headed home and I decided to walk by the river. I looked down and I saw Timothy and Mary sitting together, talking. Timothy was as animated and happy a young man as I'd ever seen. I almost didn't recognize him. Very different from the dark, brooding person who put off so many in the town. I started to wonder if it was just that he was shy and withdrawn. A couple of years ago, I hired him to do some work for me...mostly so that I could pay him and keep him from starving."

Ducky stopped talking and sighed. Gibbs and Tony exchanged looks.

"What?"

"Well, it's not that he's shy. He is a little bit, but that's not the problem. There is definitely something about him that is...disturbed. I can't tell you what it is, but it's there and it's real. He keeps his own counsel and has no interest in sharing, but it seemed that Mary was the only person who was able to banish that darkness from him. That's why I don't think he could have killed her. She was his only source of light...and I think he has simply led a miserable life that has very little prospect of improving. If he would accept it, I would give him the means to leave and pursue a life somewhere else, but he doesn't trust me that far. He doesn't trust _anyone_ that far."

"You mentioned his mother. What about his father?"

"I have no idea, except that he hates him. He doesn't speak of his father at all, but once he mentioned that he didn't want to be him and the look in his eyes was definitely one of hatred. I've never heard anything about his father. No one in town seems to know which is a surprise in and of itself."

"Anything else you can tell us?"

"No, not without a specific question from you."

"All right," Gibbs said. "We'll get started. We will have to talk to the sheriff, I hope you realize."

"Yes, I do. He dislikes Timothy. I don't know why, but he does. He arrested Timothy the morning after Mary disappeared, even before they found her body. If he had evidence of foul play, I don't know about it. But he went to Timothy's home with a group of people from the town. It was almost like an Old West posse. I don't know what would have happened to Timothy if he'd tried to resist. He didn't resist, though."

"Were you there?" Gibbs asked.

"No. I only heard about it after the fact."

"But he was arrested _before_?" Tony asked. "Didn't that seem weird to anyone?"

"Not when they will instantly agree that Timothy is guilty of whatever crime might have been committed."

"Yikes. That bad, huh."

"Yes. Just be aware that he is already convinced that Timothy is guilty. I don't know why he had to release him, but I guess that even he has to accept the law."

"Okay. Where's his house?"

Ducky gave them the address. "There's not much there. At this moment, all Timothy has are the clothes he's wearing."

"I can't promise that we'll find anything. If there's no evidence, there's no evidence," Gibbs said.

"I understand."

Gibbs shook Ducky's hand and then walked back around the house. He and Tony got in the car and started toward Tim's house.

"So...this Dr. Mallard doesn't think that this guy is guilty, but he didn't sound like he'd necessarily be surprised if he was. What does that say about a guy when even the one who wants to believe him thinks he's capable of murder?"

Gibbs didn't answer. Instead, he pulled out his phone and dialed back to the office.

" _Hey, Gibbs. What can I do you for?"_ Abby asked.

"Abbs, I need you to find everything you can about a man named Timothy McGee from Hazard. Family, education, criminal history, everything."

" _On it."_

Gibbs hung up.

"When do we talk to the sheriff?" Tony asked.

"After we see the house."

It didn't take long to get there. They pulled up in front of the charred remains.

"Well, at least we know _why_ they did it," Tony said, pointing to the vandalized car.

"Yeah."

Tony grabbed his kit from the back and headed for the front door. Gibbs got the camera. He looked at the house and felt a sudden rush of sympathy for Tim McGee, even though he'd never met the man. The house was small and had the look of being rundown even before the fire. The homes around it were in similar states. Where Ducky's neighborhood had been modest and neat, these homes were rundown and old. But now, even as little as Tim had, he'd lost.

However, that didn't mean he wasn't a murderer. They would pursue this without worrying about offending either side. It sounded like Ducky was convinced Tim was innocent and the rest of the town was convinced he was guilty. To figure all this out, they would have to ignore both sides and focus on what the evidence said.

"Hey, Boss?"

"Yeah?"

"You should come in and look at this."

Gibbs climbed into the house and followed Tony into the only bedroom. Tony opened the closet. The fire hadn't been as bad in the bedroom. There was definitely some damage, but not enough to destroy everything.

"These are women's clothes, Boss. His mother's things?"

"Maybe."

"But she died like four or five years ago, right? Why would he still have all this stuff? There's nothing of his in here."

Gibbs put on a pair of gloves and began rifling through the contents of the closet. A few dresses in varying states of shabbiness, a couple of pairs of shoes, definitely all female. He supposed it was possible that Tim wore these himself, but he figured that something like that would be known in a small town like this, especially when people already viewed him with distrust.

"Guess we'll have to ask him."

They heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. Tony raised an eyebrow.

"What do you think? Sheriff or nosy neighbors?"

Gibbs smiled and walked to the door.

"What are you doing here?"

The sheriff. He was fairly tall, a little bit gone to seed, but solidly built. He looked plenty outraged at the moment.

"We're investigating a house fire. Why aren't you, Sheriff Drake?" Gibbs asked.

"Who do you think you are?"

"Agent Gibbs and Agent DiNozzo. Sent over by the state."

"We had a murder a few days ago. That takes precedence."

"And you couldn't spare a single officer to investigate the burning of a man's home?"

"We've been busy."

Gibbs jumped down from the door, forcing Sheriff Drake to back off a couple of steps.

"Well, since you're so incredibly busy, we'll just have to do your job for you. I'll let you know if I need anything."

He started to walk toward his car, knowing that the sheriff would be fuming but unable to do anything, especially since Tony was there, too.

"Tim McGee is the prime suspect in the murder. Won't matter if his home is burned or not."

"Crime is crime, no matter who the victim is. Besides, I understood that he'd been released," Gibbs said, mildly.

"Had to. For now."

"Why? If he's your prime suspect, you must have a reason for that."

"You aren't from here. You don't know him. He was obsessed with the poor girl. Always following her around. I saw him watching her the day before she disappeared."

"Watching her?"

"She was necking in a car. He saw me pull up and ran off. Very next night, she was gone."

"That's all you got? A man seeing a woman more than 24 hours before her death?" Gibbs asked, infusing as much disdain into his voice as possible.

"No. She was choked to death with a scarf. His scarf. Still around her neck when we found her. Like I said, he was obsessed with her and he's been a dangerous kid as long as he's been here."

"Dangerous? What has he done?"

The sheriff was silent which said quite a bit. If Tim McGee had ever been arrested or even warned for _anything_ , he would have mentioned it.

"So...this dangerous man has no criminal record?"

"Boss, I've found some fingerprints," Tony said, expertly interrupting before the sheriff could do more than swell up. "Don't know if they'll belong to McGee or not, but some of the dishes in the kitchen didn't burn. Also got some on the doorknobs."

"Well, I won't bother you unless we need some extra information, Sheriff. You can go and do...whatever it is you need to do," Gibbs said. "I'm going to investigate a crime."

"Well, you'd better not get in my way. State authority or not, I'm trying to find a murderer."

"Sounds like you've already assumed you found him. Usually, we wait for evidence before we draw conclusions."

"You may not like the evidence, but we've already got it."

Gibbs smiled.

"If you'd got it already, then, you wouldn't have released him." Gibbs started back toward the house. Then, he stopped and turned around. "I never get in the way of an investigation, but I will _always_ get in the way of a mob. You remember that."

He climbed back into the house. After a few seconds, they heard the sheriff drove off.

"So much for not stepping on toes," Tony said.

"I didn't step on his toes."

Tony laughed. "Yeah, you stomped on them."

Gibbs suppressed a smile.

"People like him are the problem with law enforcement. Gives us all a bad name."

"Don't have to tell me twice. But if we're going to really get into this, we're going to have to get information from him, Boss."

"I know that."

"Okay."

They kept working their way through the house. One thing that looking into the house fire would do was open up an investigation into _why_ his house had been burned. While it was obvious that it had to do with Mary's death, they would have a definite reason to investigate.

After they finished, Gibbs looked around once more.

"We've got a start. Let's head back. We can come in the morning."

Tony nodded.

They put up crime scene tape. It wouldn't keep anyone out who really wanted to get in, but it might make them think twice. Then, they drove away.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

Ducky went back into the house and saw Tim still sitting on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. This was when he could really see the darkness Tim carried inside him. What it was, he didn't know. He just knew that it was there.

"Timothy, I have a spare room."

"I'm fine out here," Tim said without moving.

"There's no reason to sleep on a couch when I have a spare bed. Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"Very well. I'll get you a blanket."

"I feel like when my mom died," Tim said softly. "No up. No down. No light. No dark. Nothing. It's just numb."

Ducky walked over to the couch and sat down by Tim.

"Timothy, what has happened here is wrong. I know very little about your life, but I know that you didn't deserve this. I'm sorry, and if there is any way I can help you..."

"No. Things have been wrong my whole life. That's not going to change, now. I've never felt that things were right...except with Mary. She made things feel right...or at least, less wrong. I've always felt wrong, strange. Everything is just not right."

Tim let out a long, slow sigh and then closed his eyes. Ducky felt only pity for the young man sitting beside him. What would it be like to live one's whole life feeling that things were always wrong? ...and what was the source of that feeling? Ducky wished that Tim trusted him enough to confide in him, but since he hadn't been willing up to this point, he didn't expect that to change. However, it was telling that it was only Mary who had helped him feel better. His mother hadn't done that.

Not for the first time, Ducky wondered what had brought Tim and his mother to Hazard. It certainly hadn't helped them rise on the social ladder. Was it Tim's obvious strangeness that had led Tim's mother to move here? Or had Tim's strangeness been a side effect of moving here? What was it?

Finally, Ducky patted Tim on the shoulder and then left him to the couch. He hoped that the SBI agents would discover something that would explain what had happened. Perhaps with knowledge, Tim might be able to overcome this situation and improve his life.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Abby was fairly giddy in her eagerness to share what she'd found.

"I figured you'd want to hear it all before you went home, Gibbs," she said.

"Won't it keep until tomorrow, Abbs?" Tony asked. "I'm tired."

 _Thwack!_

"It's not that late yet, DiNozzo. Pay attention."

"Thank you, Gibbs," Abby said with a grin. "First of all, it's a real shame that Tim McGee never went to college. I mean, his report cards have some of the worst evaluations I've ever seen. No one in the entire school liked him, but man, he got good grades. He was only barely _not_ the valedictorian. Guess what dropped him out of the running."

"I'm guessing it wasn't what would have dropped _me_ out of the running," Tony said.

"Were you even _in_ the running, Tony?" Abby asked.

"No, but that's beside the point."

"It was P.E. He failed."

"He failed P.E.? How in the world do you fail that?"

"Don't know, but the P.E. teacher wrote that he rarely came to class and that he was disruptive when he was there."

"Okay. That would do it."

"But he had straight As other than that, and he wasn't taking Mickey Mouse classes, either. I'm talking Physics, Calculus, Chemistry. He got straight As in spite of everyone hating him. Based on the evaluations, I think that he would have got low grades if there was any way the teachers could give them."

"And he didn't get a scholarship anywhere?"

"As far as I can tell, he didn't even apply for any. And it's not like they were rolling in the dough or anything. Maybe they didn't know that it was possible."

"How could you not know about something like that?" Tony asked. "It's not like scholarships are a new invention in the last ten years. They've been around for ages."

"I don't know, Tony. That's not in his file."

"So what is?" Gibbs asked.

"Well, like I said, lots of bad evaluations. Tim was considered a troublemaker, but he only had detention once."

"Then, what kind of trouble did he make?"

"Don't know that, either. It's not in his records. Whatever it was, it was never made official."

"What about before they moved to Hazard?"

"Well, this is where it does get a little hinky," Abby said. "First, his dad is dead. Lt. John McGee."

"Lieutenant?"

"Navy."

"Interesting."

"He and his girlfriend burned to death in a fire."

"Girlfriend? Not Tim's mother, then."

"Nope. Apparently, he filed for divorce, leaving Mom and young Tim McGee pretty much with nothing."

"That's pretty scummy, but what's hinky about it?" Tony asked.

"I found a few newspaper articles about it. It seems that someone reported seeing Tim McGee there at the house just before it caught fire. They saw him running away."

"How old was he?"

"Seven."

"And they thought _he_ started the fire?"

"Some people did. Kid just lost his dad, was suddenly really poor...and he was young enough not to realize what he was doing...or else he's one of those child killers."

"No charges?"

"None. There was no evidence. When Tim McGee was questioned, he said it wasn't him, got really upset about it. The record said he freaked out, started screaming, and his mother vouched for him, saying that he was home in bed, that she had even checked on him. No fingerprints in the house, and the gas line seems to have been the culprit. Seemed like just an accident. Then, his mother left the house they were renting, packed up and moved to Hazard."

"And from the beginning, apparently, people said he was strange."

Gibbs hadn't said much, but he was definitely listening.

"No counseling?" he asked.

"Nothing on record," Abby said. "Not even at school. All the reports are just about how strange he was. If he had any kind of mental health evaluation, it's not on record."

"Small town, not much funding for the schools, probably couldn't afford something like that," Tony said.

"Could be," Abby agreed. "Still, I mean, that kind of experience would be pretty awful, and nothing to help him work through it? Oh! I forgot!" She ran out of the room.

"This doesn't really make him look any more innocent, does it, Boss," Tony said.

Gibbs shook his head, but what it did do was explain why Tim McGee was seen as strange. Major life upheavals that left him without a father, without a home and impoverished. Who wouldn't be shaken by that?

Abby came running back in.

"I found this in the Hazard newspaper. They had a mini art exhibit at the elementary school two years after Tim moved in. You can't see it in detail because his drawing wasn't featured, but he's there behind the others. I blew it up as big as I could without losing the quality of the image."

She held up a picture of an unsmiling, nine-year-old Tim McGee, sitting beside a drawing.

"Whoa. What's that?" Tony asked.

"Looks like a fire-breathing monster," Abby said. "And look at what the monster is eating."

Gibbs and Tony both squinted.

"Two people, right in the middle of a house."

"And he wasn't there, huh?" Tony said.

"Well, if people were asking him about a fire that killed his dad, he might have been able to draw the right conclusion. He's smart enough."

"Did he know about his dad's girlfriend, though?"

"You'd have to ask _him_ that," Abby said. "But there was a note in his school file about being kicked out of art class because of his disturbing drawings."

"If they're like this, I don't blame them. If he was drawing something like this at nine years old, what would he be drawing in high school?"

"Good question."

"Relatives?" Gibbs asked.

Abby shook her head. "No one on his mom's side. She came from poverty and didn't seem to move up much. Parents died fairly young. No siblings. His dad's family still has some alive, but I guess Tim McGee doesn't matter to them. Or else, he just got lost in the shuffle."

"After a divorce, that could happen."

"Maybe she wasn't so innocent, either. That's happened," Tony pointed out. "If so, his dad's family may not want her kid around."

"Anyway, you can try contacting his dad's brothers, but it doesn't really look like they'll have anything to say about this. They live across the country and there's no sign of any contact."

Tony furrowed his brow and looked at the display. "So...what do we have here? We have a guy who comes from a supremely messed up home life and has apparently been at least a little bit messed up himself his whole life. He's got no one right now, and while he has almost nothing on record, everyone says he's trouble."

"Except for the one person in the town who actually got to know him," Abby said.

"What about this Mary Fields?" Tony asked. "The sheriff says McGee was following her around, but the way Dr. Mallard described it, they were friends. She must have got to know him pretty well, too."

"And if they were friends, that means that the two people who bothered saw something different from what the rest of the town assumed...and one of those two is dead," Abby said. "Poor guy."

"But we still have the fact that it seems that Tim McGee really is a messed up guy," Tony said. "Nothing that we've found gets rid of the possibility that he's guilty. I feel bad for him, too, but we've seen cases where someone gets messed up in the head and commits a crime. The messed up part just gives a reason why they might have done it. It doesn't mean that they couldn't have."

"Are you going to believe what everyone else believes just because it'd be easier?" Abby asked in annoyance.

"No! But just because this guy's had a crappy life does not mean that he gets a free pass. If we're going to do this right, we need to acknowledge that, for all we know right now, he _could_ be guilty."

"Or he could be innocent," Abby insisted.

"Exactly, but right now, we just don't know that. The sheriff was right about one thing. We aren't from that town and we don't know this guy. We have information, but we don't know him. ...oh, and I just realized that we never checked his car, Boss. Got distracted by the sheriff."

"Okay. Tomorrow morning, we head back," Gibbs said. "First to his car and then, to him."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim woke up with a start. It was dark and quiet in Ducky's living room. He pulled the family photo out of his pocket and stared at it for a while. Then, he shoved it down in between the cushions of the couch. Not really understanding why, he got up and headed for the door. He didn't try to be quiet. He just needed to go. Right now, the destination wasn't conscious, but he started walking, his brain buzzing with indefinable emotion, thoughts that swirled around inside his head, leaving him confused, upset...angry. The wrong feeling that filled so much of his life.

He started to run.

He ran faster and faster until his destination finally became a conscious thought.

The river.

He stumbled to a stop on the bank and stared at it. In the darkness, it was just a faint, shimmery space. The river was quiet and unhurried. Except for during the spring thaw, the river was just a wide expanse of water, slowly flowing downstream where it eventually joined the Platte River and then to the Missouri. Calm, quiet, gentle.

Mary had died in there.

Tim crouched down in the mud by the river and began digging up rocks from the bank. Then, he threw them as hard as he could at the water, wanting to hurt it, knowing that he couldn't.

It didn't change anything. As soon as he stopped throwing the rocks, the river returned to its calm, silent state.

He knelt in the mud and covered his head with his muddy hands. All those oppressive emotions that would surge up inside of him at unexpected moments took over his brain. He wanted to scream, but he didn't. Instead, he got up and started to walk away. Then, he saw a car stop by the river. He didn't know who it was, but he turned around and ran back to the river. People never made things better. He didn't stop at the bank. He just started to go out into it. Halfway out, he tripped and fell, submerging himself, briefly.

For an eternal moment, he was completely submerged. It wasn't silent under the water. There was a roaring sound and strange sparkling things. And cold. It was cold under the water. No fire down here. It was wet and cold. He stayed where he was, wondering if the cold could purge the fire from his brain.

Then, there were hands on him, lifting him up, pulling him back away from the water. He couldn't fight it. He didn't bother trying.

Tim started to cry. Loud, full, gasping sobs, full of emotions he couldn't explain. It went so far beyond grief that the word meant almost nothing to how he felt.

"Timothy. Timothy, it's all right. It's all right, lad. I've got you. It's all right. Just let it out."

Tim tried to explain the unexplainable, but all that he managed to get out around his cries were garbled words that meant nothing.

"Fire," he gasped, finally. "Put...out the fire... fire..."

Arms around him, rocking him like his mother had done when he was young and the things that didn't make sense had been too much.

...but his mother didn't make the wrong feelings go away, either. She never had.

He kept crying, wishing that something would get rid of the strangeness he always felt inside him, wishing that he could feel something so simple as grief, wishing that there was some way to escape this life.

After a few minutes, the emotions didn't feel so much like they were consuming him and he stopped crying. He sat up, pulling away from the arms and he turned to see who it was.

"What are you doing here?" he asked softly.

Ducky squeezed his shoulder.

"I heard you leave. When I saw you start to run, I was worried about what you were doing. So I followed you here. What were you doing?"

"I don't know," Tim said. "I don't..." He took a deep breath and got to his feet. "I hate this place."

"Come, Timothy. Let's go back to my house and you can sleep."

Tim nodded and let Ducky drive him back.

When they got to the house, Tim was soaking wet; so Ducky got some old sweats, cut them into shorts and let Tim wear those while his clothes dried. Tim watched dispassionately, not caring what he wore or didn't wear. After that, Ducky gave him a couple of extra blankets for warmth and Tim lay down on the couch again, hoping that he'd feel better in the morning.

...but he doubted he would. He never felt better.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Gibbs was just getting ready to head out when his phone rang.

"Gibbs," he said, tersely.

" _Agent Gibbs. This is Dr. Mallard. I hope I'm not disturbing you. I realize it's fairly early."_

"No, Dr. Mallard. What is it?"

" _Will anyone from your office be coming here today?"_

"Yes. We'll need to speak to Tim McGee, I hope you realize."

" _I do. I was wondering if you could do me a favor...if it's allowed. I'm not sure about the policy on these things."_

"Favor?" This wasn't the kind of conversation he'd expected to be having before seven a.m.

" _Yes. Timothy has no clothing since the fire. He had a...particularly bad night and his only clothes were soaked. They're drying now, but I don't want him stuck wearing the same clothes day after day. I'm a lot shorter than he is and he can't borrow anything I own. I was hoping that you might be able to purchase some clothing for him and perhaps a pair of shoes as well. I would reimburse you, of course."_

"Aren't there any clothing stores in Hazard?" Gibbs asked.

" _There are. One or two."_

"But?"

" _But I'm not sure I want to advertise that Timothy is with me...and I'm not sure they would be willing to sell me anything for him. It would be quite obvious that I'm not buying the clothes for myself."_

"Are you worried about reprisals, Dr. Mallard?"

" _Perhaps a little bit. I'm not thinking they're inevitable, but while there are so many high emotions running around, I could see it happening."_

Gibbs could hear the hedging that Ducky was doing. Like with Tim, he didn't want to believe that the townspeople would do anything to him, but he could believe it was possible.

"How tall is he?"

" _A little over six feet, I think. He's not a large man, but he's not a stick, either. His current shoes are size 11. I'm assuming that they fit."_

"Sounds like he's about the same size as Agent DiNozzo. We'll see what we can do."

" _Thank you, Agent Gibbs. Anything you can do. I can order clothes for him, but that will take more time than I'd like. I want to do what he'll let me do. It may not be much, but what I can do I will do."_

"We'll let you know."

" _Thank you. I won't take any more of your time. Good-bye, Agent Gibbs."_

Gibbs hung up and sat down for a moment. Ducky clearly wanted to help Tim and make things better for him. Could he really succeed in compensating for a lifetime of misery? Probably not, but Gibbs didn't blame him for trying.

He dialed another number.

" _I'm not late yet, Boss!"_ Tony said. _"I'm on my way out the door!"_

"Take a detour."

" _Detour? To where?"_

"To a store to buy some clothes for Tim McGee."

" _Okay, but can I ask why we're buying his wardrobe?"_

"Dr. Mallard called and asked for our help. He's worried about people in the town resenting his helping McGee."

" _Oh. Did you get sizes?"_

"Feet about size 11. Other than that, he's about your size. Just go with that."

" _Okay."_

"Dr. Mallard said he'd pay you back."

" _That sounds better. How much time are you giving me for this? It's not like all the clothing stores open at seven."_

"You don't have to shop at a fancy store, DiNozzo. Just get him some clothes."

" _All right, all right."_

Tony hung up and Gibbs figured that an hour would be plenty of time. Then, they could get on with the job.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Stan took a breath and then knocked.

"Come in!"

He opened the office door and saw all the same warning signs he'd seen before. Sheriff Drake looked up at him.

"You're here early, Stan."

"So are you, Alan."

"You have something to say?"

"Yes, I do, and you know what it is. I think you're getting too close to this case and you should step aside."

"I don't step aside when a crime is committed."

"Look, I don't like McGee anymore than you do, but the plain fact of the matter is that you don't have any real evidence that he killed Mary."

"We have his scarf."

"Which your son admitted he found on the ground outside the car the night before she disappeared. All that proves is that he was there that night. It doesn't show anything else."

"He's guilty," Sheriff Drake said.

"You don't _know_ that, Alan," Stan said. "Your obsession with pinning this on Tim McGee could blind you to evidence leading you to the real killer. If he did it, then, Tim McGee will be arrested and tried, but you wouldn't even look into who set his house on fire!"

"I told you that the state guys are doing that, now."

" _We_ should be doing that," Stan said. "Innocent or guilty, no one has the right to destroy someone else's property. I thought you were better than that."

Sheriff Drake stood up, looking angry, and Stan knew that he'd crossed the line.

"I have spent my life in law enforcement. I've been doing it since you were running around in diapers, Deputy Burley. When I want your opinion, I'll ask for it. You've been pretty free with that, lately."

"Only because I know you should know better than to arrest a man before we even find a body. I'm speaking out now because I can do it in private, not in front of the other guys or the town, but you screwed up. Big time. And if you weren't so obsessed with this case, you'd see it. Why not let these state guys investigate? They're not going to be biased for or against McGee. They'll rely on evidence. That might be best."

"I do not give up a case to someone else. This is _my_ town, and I will police it as _I_ see fit. Understand?"

"Will you at least give it some thought?" Stan asked. "Some _real_ thought? If you were thinking clearly about this, you'd know that I'm right about it."

"If I say yes, will you go away and let me work?"

Stan smiled. "Yes, sir."

"Fine. I'll think about it."

"Thank you."

"Now, get out of here."

Stan left the office, suppressing a grimace. He'd worked as the deputy here in Hazard for five years, and he'd never seen Sheriff Drake so unreasonable. ...but then, he'd carried some kind grudge against Tim McGee all the time Stan had known him. He didn't know where it came from, but it was definitely there, no matter how often he denied it.

He'd seen how strange and off-putting Tim was, but that night, when they'd dragged him to the police station, they'd asked him about where he was, and Stan would have sworn that Tim didn't know that Mary was dead at that point. When they'd found her body and Sheriff Drake had confronted him with the scarf, there had been something in Tim's eyes that had given Stan pause. He wasn't sure he knew what it was, but he did know that there was something more going on. Tim had even denied that he and Mary were dating. Everyone knew that they'd hung out together on occasion, but what the relationship was...well, no one knew or cared.

...until Mary ended up dead.

Stan decided to go over to the house. He didn't like what had happened, and even more, he didn't like that Sheriff Drake seemed so uncaring about it. Like him or hate him, Tim McGee had the same rights anyone else had and they couldn't let this kind of act go...and yet, that's exactly what might happen.

Stan couldn't let it.

He drove over to the McGee house and was surprised to see someone else there already. He could see one man in Tim's car and another one moving around inside. He got out of his car.

"I hope you're the guys sent by the state," he said. "Otherwise, I have to assume you're trespassing."

"Stan?"

Stan looked toward the house.

"Gibbs?"

"Stan! It's been a while," Gibbs said and jumped out of the house. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm the deputy. Have been for five years. You're the state guy?"

"Yep. That's Tony DiNozzo."

Stan looked at Tony. "You took my place, huh?"

"Guess so. Who are you?"

Stan put out his hand. "Deputy Stan Burley of the Hazard Police Department. Previously, Agent Burley, under one Agent Gibbs."

Tony shook his hand.

"You sure let some doozies happen here, Stan," Gibbs said, sternly.

"I know." He gestured at the house and the car. "This kind of thing makes me mad, and I'm furious that Alan won't do anything about it. All he cares about is being able to arrest Tim McGee again. I was coming over here to maybe do something. I didn't think the state would really care about one guy's house in a small town like this, but I'm glad you're the one looking into it, Gibbs. I tried to convince Alan to hand the whole thing over to you, but he wouldn't."

"Why not?"

"I don't know, but there are two things that are, at least, part of it. One is that he hates Tim McGee and always has. I don't know why. Most people just don't like how odd he is."

"Including you?"

"Including me," Stan said, easily. "I just don't interact with him. It's not like he forces himself on anyone...but Alan...I don't know. It's like Tim's very existence is an affront. The other thing is that Mary Fields was making out with his son the night before she disappeared. Tim saw it and so did Alan. Impossible to cover up. I think he's worried that, if Tim gets eliminated as a suspect, people will start to wonder about his son."

"Were they dating?" Gibbs asked.

"Not as far as _I_ know. Mary hadn't ever shown any interest in any of the Hazard boys. She could have had any of them from what I heard. In fact, Tim is the only one I ever saw her hang out with. So...I'd say no, but I guess they must have been. It'd be pretty quick to go from nothing to necking in a day."

"You're assuming that they were both wanting something long-term," Tony said.

"True. I'm kind of old-fashioned that way, I guess. Anyway, I could be wrong, but I do think that Alan is worried about his son."

"And would rather go after someone without evidence than chance his son being inconvenienced by an investigation?" Tony asked. "That's not exactly the kind of behavior I'd expect from a sheriff."

"I wouldn't, either," Stan said. "That's why I tried to get him to give up the case, but he won't."

"Well, I'm pretty sure that he won't want to help us out," Gibbs said. "How about it, Stan?"

"I should have known you'd ask me that," Stan said. "I guess I owe you one. Okay. Right now, the only evidence we have is the scarf. No hairs or fibers or stains or anything on it because it's been in the river. It was wrapped around her neck. Ducky said..."

"Who?"

Stan chuckled. "Dr. Mallard. Everyone calls him Ducky. Get it? A mallard is a kind of duck."

"Got it," Tony said.

"Ducky said that there was no water in her lungs. She was definitely dead before she went in the water. Whoever killed her used that scarf to do it. The bruising is consistent with the patterns the scarf would have made. Tim got arrested the morning after she disappeared. Sheriff Drake kept him in custody while they searched for her."

"Why did they search the river?"

"Easy. It's a nearby hazard."

"Like the town?" Tony suggested, darkly.

"Yeah. They found her and then Alan started questioning Tim about his relationship with Mary. I finally had to intervene because Tim wasn't giving him the answers he wanted, and I was afraid of what Alan might do. When we talked to his son, he said that he'd seen the scarf on the ground outside his car the night before she disappeared. Mary had told him that she'd take it. No sign that Tim got it back. We don't even know that he spoke to her before she disappeared. No one really paid attention to him unless he was right where they were, and he rarely was."

"Are you aware that he's staying with Dr. Mallard right now?"

Stan blinked a couple of times and then laughed a little. "No, I wasn't, but it doesn't surprise me. Ducky took pity on him, gave him work to do that probably didn't really need doing, but gave him an excuse to pay him. Whatever else you can say against him, Tim hasn't ever asked for a handout. He really doesn't ask anyone for anything."

"Then, why does everyone dislike him so much?" Tony asked.

"Because you can sense it just from talking to him once, there's something off about that guy, and it's not just in an eccentric way. A lot of people are scared of him. He's disturbed, and if you talk to him, you'll see it, too."

"We'll do that," Gibbs said.

"Before you say anything to me, Gibbs, I am not justifying this," Stan said, pointing at the house. "This is wrong, and I don't care if he's guilty or innocent, if I can find them, I'll arrest them for it."

"Good."

"Have you found anything?"

"Some fingerprints that we'll have to run."

"I want to know if you find anything."

"Will do."

"I hate that I'm about to say this, Gibbs, but..." Stan hesitated for a moment. This felt like betrayal, but it was the right thing to do. He knew it, even as it seemed like the wrong thing and _knew_ that Sheriff Drake would see it that way. "...but would you guys be willing to look into Mary Fields' murder while you're doing this? If you've already talked to Ducky, then, you'll have access to his information. ...and I can probably get you information from the police... but if Alan finds out, I'll lose my job."

He watched as Gibbs shared a look with Tony.

"We were going to do it, anyway, Stan," Gibbs said. "We got sent here because Dr. Mallard called the office and suggested that Tim McGee couldn't get a fair hearing by the people in this town. We just used the house fire as a cover."

"I should have known," Stan said, but he smiled, feeling more than a little relief. "I'll do what I can."

"We won't ask for more than that."

"Thanks."

"You won't get in trouble for hanging out here with us?" Tony asked.

"I already told Alan that I think he's made a big mistake in not investigating who started the fire. For all I know, he has an idea, but he just doesn't care. All he cares about is getting Tim McGee arrested."

Gibbs looked back at the house for a moment and then gave Stan that scrutinizing glance that he remembered so well.

"Do _you_ think Tim McGee is guilty?"

"No. I don't. I could be wrong, and I'm willing to admit that, but I'd swear that he didn't know she was dead when he first got arrested. It was a complete shock to him that she was missing...and it was worse when the sheriff started asking him about her being dead. The first time he said it, I was watching Tim, watching for the reaction that would say he knew already, and it was like watching someone's world fall apart. I think someone else killed her. Who and why, I don't know, but I would have looked at Tim and released him. I never would have arrested him in the first place."

Gibbs nodded.

"We'll let you know."

"Thanks, Gibbs. If you figure this out, I will definitely owe you one."

"I'd say it's more than one," Gibbs said with a slight smile.

"You're right."

Stan got in his car and headed off to do his usual morning rounds. He didn't know how this would all pan out, but if Gibbs was investigating, he was sure that he wouldn't have to see the injustice that would likely result if Sheriff Drake investigated.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Tim woke up late in the morning and was glad to note that the wrong feeling he always had was back in its usual place in the back of his mind. It wasn't dominating his thoughts the way it sometimes did.

His stomach started rumbling, and he knew he needed to get up and see what there was to eat. No matter how little he wanted to rely on Ducky for help, he had no money, no home, no food, no nothing. It was humiliating but necessary, and at the end of the day, if he wanted to live, he had to swallow what little pride he had and take Ducky's charity. He sat up and shivered a little as the blanket fell off his bare shoulders and exposed him to the open air. He needed to get his clothes back on. They were probably dirty and smelly, but he couldn't stay in Ducky's old sweatpants. It was embarrassing.

He heard some voices outside and he crept to the front window and peeked out. Ducky was standing on the front lawn, talking to some people Tim didn't recognize. Suddenly, one of the men looked at him and gestured. Ducky turned back as well, but he smiled. Tim didn't know what was going on, but he pulled back out of view. Since they didn't look like locals, he figured that it probably wasn't anything to do with him. He wasn't going to go outside and talk to Ducky in front of them, though. So he walked back to the couch and sat down. He didn't dare start rummaging through Ducky's cupboards.

Ducky came back inside a few minutes later with two large bags in his hands.

"Good morning, Timothy. How are you feeling?"

"All right." Tim didn't want to ask any questions; so he just sat where he was. "I was just about to get dressed. Where are my clothes?"

"I have something to tell you about that," Ducky said, sitting down beside him.

Tim furrowed his brow.

"I know how to get dressed, Ducky. It's really simple."

"Yes, but you won't need to put on those old clothes."

Tim forced a sarcastic smile. "I'm not going to fit into your clothes. I'm way too tall."

"Unnecessary."

Then, Ducky gave Tim the two bags he'd brought in. Tim looked at them. They were full of clothes. More clothes than he'd ever owned in his entire life.

"I can't guarantee that they'll be to your taste, but they're new and clean and they should fit. You can't keep wearing the same thing day after day."

"Why not?" Tim asked, trying to stave off the shock he felt.

"Because it's not sanitary and the clothes you've been wearing have seen better days."

Tim looked at the bags. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because you need it, Timothy. Not just the clothing, although you do need that. You need someone to care about you. It's been too long since you had that."

Tim looked at the bags again. He didn't know what to say. There was easily more than 200 dollars worth of clothing in these bags. Probably significantly more.

"Now, there is something that goes along with these clothes. Not any kind of strings," Ducky said, even before Tim could reject them on that basis. "Nothing that you say will change whether or not you keep the clothes."

"Not even if I said I killed Mary?"

"Not even then...mostly because I don't believe you did."

Tim looked away.

"After I heard about what happened at your house, I called in a favor and got the state to send some people here to investigate."

"What?" Tim asked, looking back quickly. "Investigate? Investigate what?"

"Who burned your house and who really killed Mary. You and I both know that you will not get justice from the people here."

Tim shrugged. "You say that like it matters."

"It does. It matters all the more because you feel it doesn't."

"What does all this mean?"

"It means that you'll need to answer questions again, but not from Sheriff Drake. These men really seem determined to find the truth. They were even willing to buy these clothes for you and bring them here. No questions asked."

Truth. That was such a dangerous word. Tim wasn't sure he knew what truth really meant. Still, he understood what Ducky was trying to do and he did appreciate that. It was just that it was all so...wrong. He took a breath and looked at the bags of clothes once more. Then, he looked at himself. Was there a life that he could have had that he'd just missed out on? Tim didn't know, but he also didn't know if there was any point in thinking about it. Even if he was cleared, he still had nothing to show for it.

Finally, he took the bags and went into the bathroom.

"I'll make you some breakfast, Timothy."

"Thanks, Ducky," Tim said and closed the door.

Once in the bathroom, he pulled the clothes out of the bags and looked at them. They were nicer than anything he'd _ever_ owned before. Or maybe not. Everything he owned, he tended to wear until it fell apart. New clothes came so rarely that maybe he'd forgotten what they were like. Regardless, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

And, wow. New shoes. Tim literally could not remember the last time he'd had a pair of new shoes. This seemed like an unheard-of luxury. Part of him felt that he shouldn't accept this stuff, that it couldn't possibly be as simple as Ducky said it was. The other part of him felt like it was like the Christmas he'd never had. It was a strange dichotomy of distrust and excitement. He couldn't decide which feeling to let loose.

Maybe, he should reserve judgment until such time as he could make a better determination. He nodded. And, whatever else he knew, he did know that it would be much harder to take the clothes back if he was wearing them. He pulled on the shoes. They were a little loose, but the socks that he hadn't noticed before mostly fixed that. He wasn't going to say anything about them not fitting quite right. That might get them taken away again.

Now dressed, he looked in the mirror and almost didn't recognize himself. His hair was still shaggy, but that was the norm; so Tim didn't care much about that. He usually cut it himself, but he didn't bother very often.

"Wow," he whispered.

It was almost disturbing to think about someone caring enough to do all this for him. He wasn't sure how to react to it.

He walked out of the bathroom and could smell breakfast. His stomach growled again. So he walked into the kitchen.

Ducky turned around and smiled.

"You look much better, Timothy. The clothes fit?"

Tim nodded mutely.

"Good."

Tim sat at the table. Ducky dished up a large plate of food and handed it to Tim. Tim looked at it.

"This is all for me?" he asked.

"Of course. I think you could use more food than you get."

Tim shrugged and started eating. He was definitely hungry, and since there seemed to be plenty, he didn't hold back. Food was another thing that couldn't be taken from him once he'd eaten it. Thankfully, Ducky also wasn't the kind of person he'd worry about trying.

When he finished he looked at Ducky.

"So...when are these guys coming to ask their questions?"

"I'm not sure. They're also looking into the house fire."

"Oh."

"Timothy, about last night."

Tim stood up and walked away. He didn't want to talk about that. Talking about the wrong feelings only made him feel them more strongly again, and he didn't want that. He had to feel them all the time, but he could try to feel them less, not more.

Ducky didn't follow him; so Tim went out to the back and sat on the patio and stared at nothing, thinking about how much he'd lost.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

" _Explain this, McGee!"_

 _Tim stared at the bag, at the scarf inside it._

 _His scarf._

" _Mary was killed using your scarf."_

 _Tim looked up. He couldn't get the words out, but he stared at Sheriff Drake and then at Deputy Burley. Then, he looked at the scarf again. Mary was dead?_

" _How did your scarf get around her neck, McGee? If you didn't kill her, why was your scarf the weapon?"_

 _Tim couldn't even think of an answer to the question. All he could think about was that Mary was dead._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Hey, Boss. I found something here," Tony said.

Gibbs got out of the car and walked around to the trunk.

"Look at this," Tony said. "A sketchpad or something."

He picked it up and started leafing through it. Most of the pages were covered with drawings. And they were...disturbing.

"Whoa. If this is what's going through Tim McGee's mind, I can see why people would be put off by it...but he's pretty good at drawing."

The first page was a more sophisticated version of the fire-breathing monster they'd seen in the newspaper. Now, the entire monster looked like it was on fire. There was fire in his eyes as well, and small people dancing around where the irises should be. The monster's mouth was wide open and it was eating a house. Right in the middle of the house were two people, a man and a woman, on a bed. The bed was on fire and it was clear from the faces he'd drawn that they were screaming.

That was the dominant image, but there were smaller drawings all around the monster, all disturbing. Tim certainly didn't waste any of the space on the page. It was full of these things. Tony flipped forward a few pages and saw more of the same, although the monster was never quite the same from page to page. Some of the drawings had the house so engulfed in flames that he had only drawn a vague outline of the two people. Some drawings had the monster grabbing at the house with a fiery hand, looking as though it would crush the structure, but there were always two people in the house.

Then, about 40 pages into the book, the images changed.

Instead of the disturbing monsters, there was a woman. The first image looked like it must have taken a long time. The woman was standing in the water of a river. She had lots of long, dark hair, with natural curl. It looked as though she was coming up out of the water, and she was wearing a vaguely Greek-looking dress, as if she was a goddess or something. The effort Tim had put into this drawing demonstrated what it meant to him. Over and over again on subsequent pages, there she was, in various clothes and various poses. She was smiling sometimes, solemn sometimes, but always beautiful and kind-looking. Often, on the same page, there would be smaller images of the old monster or other disturbing fiends, but the dominant image was always the woman.

"This must be Mary Fields," Tony said.

Gibbs nodded.

"Obsession?"

"Maybe."

Then, Tony flipped to the last page with a drawing on it. It was unfinished.

...and it was a monster again. Whether he hadn't had time to add the flames yet or this was a different kind of monster, it was definitely not the same as the first pages. It had huge, glassy eyes. The eyes were the dominant part of the monster. There was no fire (yet?) and there was a different focus to the image. It wasn't a house. They weren't sure what it was, but it wasn't the house.

"Whoa. What happened there?"

"Stan said that Mary and the sheriff's son were making out in a car and that McGee saw them. Maybe he felt betrayed," Gibbs said.

"Guess that makes sense. Well, there are lots of pages left in this still. I guess we can ask him about the pictures when we go back to Ducky...er, Dr. Mallard's house. That's an easy nickname to fall into. I'm surprised he doesn't mind it. He doesn't seem that easygoing."

"Only one set of fingerprints inside the car," Gibbs said, pulling them back on topic.

"They're probably his. Figures," Tony said. "They sprayed what they thought on the outside. If they burned his car, too, he wouldn't be able to drive out of town. They wouldn't even need to touch the car if they weren't going to destroy it."

"Let's go and see what McGee has to say."

"Right, Boss."

They headed back to Ducky's place, and whatever else they got from this, it was sure to be an experience.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"You going to lead off, Boss?"

"Yeah. Don't mention the sketchpad, right now."

Tony nodded and followed Gibbs to the front door. Gibbs knocked.

The door opened.

"Agent Gibbs, Agent DiNozzo. Timothy is in the back. Thank you again for bringing the clothes for him. I don't know if he's had new clothes in years. He keeps looking at the shoes you chose as if he's afraid they'll disappear. If it weren't for all the negative experiences he's had, I think this would be one of the greatest gifts he'd ever been given. As it is, I think he's afraid they'll be taken back."

"Well, _I'm_ not taking them back," Tony said.

"I wasn't thinking you would. It's just the way things are. I'm assuming you're here to speak with him?"

"Yes."

"I'll stay out of the way."

Gibbs glanced at Tony and then looked back.

"Does McGee draw?"

"Why, yes. He does. How did you know?"

"We found a newspaper article from when he was young. It was a strange drawing."

"Yes, I've heard about them, although I've never actually seen what he draws. I'm simply aware that he does do it. I decided that it wasn't my place to probe into parts of Timothy's life that he doesn't choose to share with me. I'm curious about it, of course. I would guess that it's a journey right into his psyche to see what he spends his time on."

"You a shrink, too, Duck... Dr. Mallard?" Tony asked. "Sorry about that."

Ducky chuckled. "You may call me Ducky if you'd like. Nearly everyone does. I'm not a psychiatrist, but I've studied forensic psychology in the past. When one sees people in their raw, uncovered state, it tends to make one curious about how they got there. As a medical examiner, I had the opportunity to see people in many different situations, and it helped me do my job better when I could see more what had placed them in my care." Then, Ducky smiled ruefully. "My apologies. I do tend to talk more than is necessary when given the chance. Come this way."

Ducky led them to the back patio where they'd spoken with him before. Tim was sitting on a chair, staring blankly at the ground. How long he'd been like that was anyone's guess.

"Timothy?"

He looked up quickly and his gaze instantly moved from Ducky to Gibbs and Tony.

"These are the agents I told you about. This is Agent Gibbs and Agent DiNozzo."

Tim stood up, taking his time to look at them. He wasn't being insolent. Tony could see that right away. He was wary. These were two complete strangers, and it was likely that he hadn't seen too many people he didn't already know in his time living in Hazard. He was trying to ascertain their intentions. Then, he walked forward, hesitated and put out his hand.

"Tim McGee," he said. "Ducky told me you were coming."

It was the first time they'd heard him speak. He seemed rather soft-spoken, but there was definitely something about him. He didn't really want to look them in the eye. He kept shifting his gaze elsewhere, but it always came back to them as if he didn't dare look away for too long.

"Mr. McGee, we'd..."

"Don't call me that," he said, that soft voice taking on a hard edge. "I don't want to be called that."

"Fine," Gibbs said. "What would you prefer?"

"My name is Tim."

"Fine, Tim. We'd like to ask you some questions. First, about your house."

Tim walked back to the chair and sat down. Tony and Gibbs followed suit.

"Okay, what?"

"We noticed that the bedroom still had your mother's things in it."

"It's her room," Tim said.

"She's been dead for a while. Do you not sleep in there?"

"It's her room," Tim said. "I can't sleep in her room."

"Why leave all her clothes and stuff in there?" Tony asked. "Do you need it for anything?"

"No." His eyes grew troubled. "It's my mom's room. It's not my room. I don't want to be in there."

"Okay. If you say so."

"I do," Tim said, his eyes clearing a bit.

"Do you have any idea of who might have been involved?" Gibbs asked.

"That doesn't matter," he said.

"You seem to have lost pretty much everything you owned," Tony pointed out.

Tim nodded. "But to me, it doesn't matter...because no matter what group of people did it, the rest of them wanted to. As far as I'm concerned, every one of them is guilty. So it doesn't matter who actually burned my house," he said, bitterly. "They all did, except Ducky, I guess."

"Doesn't sound like you enjoy living here," Gibbs said.

"I don't. I hate this place. I've always hated it. From day one."

"Then, why stay?"

Tim shrugged and stared at the ground. "Because I have nowhere else to go. As crappy as this place is, it's the only place I really know. Besides, I'm the reason my mom moved us here. I figure that the reasons for that haven't gone away."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow and looked at Tony for a moment. It would be interesting to get Tim's take on the bare-bones information they'd found so far.

"What reasons?"

Tim looked up.

"Because people think I killed my father."

Tony wondered how that would feel, to know that people considered you a murderer from the time you were a child.

"Why would they think that?"

"I was only seven when we moved here," Tim said, his voice soft again, but not for long. As he continued to talk, he sounded less and less soft-spoken and more and more disturbed. "After my father burned to death in the house he was sharing with that _slut_ he was sleeping with after he abandoned us. He left us in the dirt, like we didn't even matter, all for another woman. Then, they both died together."

So Tim _had_ known about his father's girlfriend, even at age seven.

"He deserved it," Tim said, sounding bitter and resentful. "I didn't care that he was dead, that he probably had suffered a lot from burning to death, that they probably were screaming for help." His voice changed, but what it changed to was indefinable. His hand briefly moved up to his shoulder, as if he was grabbing for something that wasn't there. Then, it dropped back to his lap. "Who knows how long it took for the two of them to die. Was it right away? Maybe, they never even felt their skin melting, blistering, charring to black..."

Tim trailed off into silence and he stared at the table for a few seconds. It was clearly something he'd thought about a lot, but it didn't seem to be something that brought him any pleasure.

"Why did people think you did it?" Gibbs asked.

Tim jumped a little and looked up at him.

"Because someone said that they'd seen me running away from the house. ...but my mom said that I was home, sleeping in my bed! She told the police that! ...but then, even after they believed her, she sold everything and moved here. We lived in a dump back there. We moved into worse dump here. Nothing changed...but people didn't like me. They said that I was weird. I had nightmares, and sometimes, they scared me a lot. Sometimes, I didn't even remember what the dreams were. I just knew that I was scared. When that happened, no one could make me feel better, not even Mom."

Tony didn't know what Gibbs was thinking, but _he_ was thinking that Tim had described things very strangely. Someone said this. His mom said that. Nothing about what was true. Only about what people had said. So...had he really been at the house? If so, why? If he had, why had his mother lied to the police?

"Was that all it took for people here to not like you?"

Tim shrugged. "I'm a weirdo, Agent Gibbs. I know it. People think I don't, but I do. I just can't...think about things normally. I can't do what I should probably be able to do. Sometimes, it's almost normal, or what I _think_ is normal, but then, something will change and I have to react."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Just things. That's why I draw. It helps me when the wrong feelings get too strong."

"What do you draw?" Gibbs asked, not even batting an eye.

"Just...stuff. When I was a kid it was mostly monsters."

"And now?"

"I haven't drawn at all for the last few days."

"And before that?"

"Why?"

Gibbs just raised an eyebrow.

"I was drawing a lot of pictures of Mary."

"Why her?"

"I didn't kill her!" Tim said, his voice rising again. "Okay? I didn't! He keeps saying that I did, but it wasn't me! It wasn't! Just like before! They said it was me, but it wasn't!"

Tony could see that Tim was almost hysterical, and he had moved from the dull resignation to high emotion so quickly that it was a shock. Whatever else there was about Tim, he could see what both Ducky and Stan had said. Tim definitely had some psychological problems.

"We're not saying you did," Tony said, trying to cut through Tim's exclamation.

Tim started to get to his feet, but Gibbs just reached out and put his hand on Tim's shoulder. So far as Tony could tell, there was no real pressure, just the physical contact. Tim calmed almost immediately. He sat back down.

"I didn't kill her," he said again, but much more calmly.

"We didn't say that," Gibbs said. "We asked you why you drew pictures of Mary."

"Were you two dating?"

Again, there was a shadow, as if Tony had just asked a disturbing question.

"No. Never. Nothing like that," he said, sounding almost afraid of the idea.

"Deputy Burley said that you had seen Mary Fields and Alan Drake together in his car the night before she disappeared."

Another expression flashed across Tim's face, but this time, Tony couldn't identify it.

"Yes."

"Did you see her after that?"

"Yes. By the river. That's where we always went. We would walk by the river and talk. It was so different to have someone _like_ being with me and not caring about what people said." Tim actually smiled a little. It changed his whole countenance. But it didn't last. The smile vanished as he kept talking. "After I saw them doing...that, I ran away, but I left my scarf. It got caught in a bush by the road. Mary called me and told me she had it and would I come and talk to her. I went, but when she tried to tell me that it wasn't like I thought, I just got mad, pushed her and ran away again. I didn't want to hear why she was with Alan."

"If you weren't dating her, why was it a problem?" Tony asked.

"Because it wasn't right," Tim said. "Not because I was dating her but...because she wasn't dating him. It just wasn't right and I hated it. I hate Alan. He was one of the kids who wouldn't leave me alone. He's still a jerk. He had to try to make me mad, and it was easy to do. He's a terrible person and that's who Mary was..." Tim shook his head. "It wasn't right."

"Do you have any idea who might have killed Mary?" Gibbs asked.

"No."

For the first time, Tim looked like he was lying to them. Everything about the way he was sitting before them screamed that this was a lie. Tim did have an idea of who the guilty party was, but he wasn't telling them. Tony was surprised when Gibbs didn't call him on it.

"Do you know why Mary came back to Hazard?"

"I don't. We didn't talk about that kind of thing. We didn't talk about why I moved here or why she had come back. We just talked about what we'd do if we could leave."

"So do you think she was trapped here?"

"By something, yes. I don't know what. We never saw each other anywhere but at the river."

"All right. We'll probably have more questions for you later, but that's it for now," Gibbs said. "You'll be here?"

Tim nodded and looked embarrassed about that.

Gibbs gestured to Tony and they both stood up. They started to leave.

"Agent Gibbs?"

Tony saw Gibbs smile a little, as if he'd expected it. They both turned.

Tim was standing, looking very earnest, almost hopeful.

"I swear that when I left the river, she was alive. I swear that I didn't kill her. I don't care what Sheriff Drake says. I did not kill Mary. Do you believe me?"

"I can't say for sure yet, Tim. I have to go by the evidence, but so far, I'm closer to believing you than to believing Sheriff Drake."

There was another of those strange expressions that crossed Tim's face. It wasn't happiness. It wasn't even relief. It was conflicted, and Tony couldn't figure out why. Still, Tim nodded.

"Okay."

Then, they left. As soon as they were in the car, Tony started to talk.

"All that stuff with his mom. Do you think that she was abusing him?"

"Don't know. She means something to him, and it's not all good, either."

"Yeah. I thought you were going to ask about the drawings, Boss."

"Don't want him to know we have it, yet."

"I'd really like to know what a shrink would think about the stuff he draws. Maybe we could have Duck–Dr. Mallard look. Sorry."

"Call him Ducky if it makes it easy for you, DiNozzo," Gibbs said.

Tony grinned. "Will do. What about it?"

"Dr. Mallard is looking out for Tim. He's involved on a personal level. I don't want to use him for official work."

"Not yet, anyway," Tony said. "Well, Kate should be getting back from that conference tomorrow...unless the Secret Service managed to get her away from us like they keep trying to do. She's our profiler...and what about her sister? She's a genuine bona fide shrink herself. Between the two of them, they ought to be able to come up with something."

Gibbs just nodded.

"You know, he looked pretty normal in the clothes I bought. I think I was a little off in the sizes, but he didn't say a word about it."

"Probably isn't used to having the option, if he's been as poor as people said."

"Yeah. This guy really is off, Boss. I wasn't sure what Burley meant before, but he's right. You can see it. The way McGee reacts to pretty much everything is just off. Even when it's not _really_ off, it's still off. And he says he knows that there's something wrong with him. With all that, he could be the killer."

"Yeah, but he's not."

Tony smiled. "I knew you'd say that. Somehow, I just knew it. How are we going to prove that, though?"

"Don't know yet, but he definitely needs help."

"It's got to be coming from what happened to his dad; at least, that's the start of it. The way he talked about what happened back then...it was just weird."

Gibbs nodded.

"I think he _was_ there. I don't know that he did anything, but those pictures he drew and the way that he reacted to the questions we asked, he had to have been there at the house before it burned. I just don't get why his mom would lie."

"Either she was afraid that he'd get blamed without cause or that he'd get blamed _with_ cause. Could just have been protecting him."

"You think she might have thought he was responsible for his own father being burned to death?" Tony shook his head. "That's pretty bad. You know, Boss, any one of these things could have been enough to drive someone over the edge as an adult. He has the whole lot of them, and half started before he was eight years old. I can't believe no one ever took the time to evaluate him and get him help."

Gibbs looked at him with a bit of a smile.

"Maybe they did."

Tony thought about it.

"At his old school...before they moved here. Worth a shot," Tony said.

"Call Abby."

Tony nodded and pulled out his phone.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"For the last time, Dad, I had nothing to do with what happened to Mary!" Alan Drake, Jr. was more than a little irritated. "It's none of your business what we were doing. As long as I wasn't raping her or something like that, it has nothing to do with you."

"I'm only trying to look out for you," Sheriff Drake said. "You should have known better than to get involved with someone like her."

"Dad, drop it. I may have had to come back to Hazard to earn money for grad school, but I am an adult. You have no say in how I live my life. If I want to neck in a back alley with an entire sorority at once, it's none of your business. So butt out! I didn't kill Mary, and that's all that should matter."

Alan started to leave.

"It may not matter if people have time to start thinking about someone other than Tim McGee as the killer."

"What? Why would I even be a possibility? Because we were making out in my car? Dad, no one has even mentioned that."

"That's because they think it's McGee."

"So why would that change? The freak is probably the most likely person anyway. He's the one who was always with her. He obviously was obsessed with her. He probably lost it and killed her after he saw us in the car."

"Until I can get enough evidence to arrest him, it won't matter what's most likely. People might start thinking about it."

Alan sighed. "Dad, get off it. If you wouldn't keep talking about it, no one would think of it at all. Tim is creepy. No one likes him. He's obviously a weirdo. I'm about to get into grad school. Do you honestly think _anyone_ is going to think I'm more likely to have killed Mary than Tim? Please."

Alan walked out, leaving his father behind.

Sheriff Drake grimaced. If it hadn't been for Stan, he would still have Tim in custody.

He hated having loose ends out there.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

" _You can't keep holding him, Alan."_

" _Why not?"_

" _Because his scarf is not enough. We already know that she had it with her."_

" _We do?"_

 _Stan sighed. "Yes. Your son told me that he found it on the ground outside his car. Last night. He found it and Mary took it. She had it with her. You have to release him!"_

" _Why? Who's going to care?"_

" _I care. You haven't even let him bring in representation, and he's entitled to that, whether he realizes it or not. By law. Alan, if you don't let him go, now, and he thinks to say something to a lawyer, he'll get off whether he's guilty or not, just because you didn't give him the rights he has. Either you let him go, or I will."_

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim sat at the table in the kitchen, drawing. Ducky had tried to get him to talk about last night again, and Tim had ignored him. He wished he had his sketchpad. He hated that there was an unfinished picture in it, and empty pages. Of course, he was assuming it had been destroyed along with everything else he owned. So it didn't matter what was unfinished. It didn't exist anymore anyway.

He sighed and refocused on the page. It was a monster, of course. Monsters just made more sense to him than anything else he could think about. It was still the fire monster, but this time, it was a monster made up of dozens of smaller monsters, each one of them aflame, each one reaching out to destroy. All of them together made one giant monster, something that killed without remorse, that wanted only to hurt, never to help. Then, he drew a much smaller human figure crouched over on the ground, beneath the monster's foot, waiting to be crushed. It was a much rougher drawing than he usually did. Usually, he took days to do one of these drawings. There were so many details he had to get right. This time, it was just getting it out of his system.

A hand on his back startled him out of his concentration. He looked up and then back down as Ducky sat beside him.

"Timothy, not talking about it doesn't make it go away."

"Nothing makes it go away, Ducky," Tim said. "Nothing ever makes it go away. Mary almost did, but now, she's gone, too." He held up the picture he was drawing. "This is all that's left."

"Why is it always a monster?" Ducky asked.

"Because that's what it is. It couldn't be anything else."

"Timothy, what were you doing last night? Were you trying to kill yourself?"

Tim sighed and stared at the table. "I don't know. I don't know what I was doing. I just had to get away from the way I felt. I went to the river, but it didn't help like it used to. The river killed Mary. I wanted to get away, but I couldn't."

"You can't run away from your problems or your fears. They're inside you, Timothy. Sharing them can lessen their power over you."

Tim shook his head. Abruptly, he set the drawing aside, wanting to do something else for a change.

"Your computer could use an upgrade, Ducky. I'll do it."

He didn't wait for Ducky to agree or not. He just got up and left Ducky sitting at the table.

He went to the study where Ducky had his computer. He pulled out the tower and took off the cover. He began to tinker with it and his mind started to flit around to places in the past whether he wanted it to or not.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

" _Why do you always come here, Tim?" Mary asked as they lay together on the bank. "I know that there's not much to do in Hazard, but why the river all the time?"_

" _Because it keeps the bad things away."_

" _Bad things or bad people?"_

" _Bad things. In my head. Nothing can keep bad people away, but it makes the stuff in my head that I can't control not so bad. The sound is nice."_

 _Mary rolled over onto her side and looked at Tim intently. It made him feel strange._

" _Maybe I could help you, too."_

 _She leaned in close to him, and Tim pulled back, suddenly, afraid._

" _Not like that, Mary. Please don't do that."_

 _She sat up and looked at him._

" _What's wrong, Tim? What is it?"_

 _The wrong feeling rose up stronger than ever and Tim jumped to his feet and ran away from her._

 _It was days later that he went back to the river._

 _Mary was there. She was sitting in their usual place, arms around her knees. He walked over and sat down beside her._

" _I wasn't sure you'd come back," she said._

" _I don't like to stay away...and I missed you," Tim said, honestly._

" _Tim, did I scare you?"_

 _He hesitated and then nodded._

" _I'm sorry, Tim."_

 _Mary leaned forward and hugged him tightly before he could do anything else. She held him for a few seconds and then let him go._

" _Why did you do that?" he asked._

" _So you could see that it's okay for someone to hug you. It's not bad. It's not wrong. Sometimes, just being able to touch another person can make you feel better."_

 _Tim looked at the river and thought about it. Then, he looked back at her._

" _Does it?" he asked._

" _It makes me feel better," Mary said._

 _Tim chanced a smile. "Maybe you could...try again? ...on another day?" he asked._

 _Mary smiled back. "Okay, Tim. I will."_

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Hello, Dr. Cranston," Tony said with a smile. "Happy to be here with us, again?"

"I was hoping I'd have my sister as a buffer before I had to deal with the joker and the strong, silent type," Rachel said, smiling back.

"Well, you could wait until tomorrow when she gets back, but you _are_ here for official business."

"Oh? What is it?"

"Possibly talking to a guy that's come up in our latest case, but definitely analyzing some very interesting drawings of his."

"Drawings? I'm intrigued, although Kate's better at those kinds of things."

"Well, these will take you a while. There are quite a few of them. I'm sure she'll get back in time to help."

"I'm even more intrigued. Why would you want me to talk to him?"

"To tell us just how mentally or emotionally disturbed he is."

"A suspect?"

Tony shook his head. "I don't think so. Right now, he's definitely a victim. People in the town burned his house because they think he killed a girl. He's had a pretty hard life up to now and it's not getting any better."

Rachel sat down at Kate's desk.

"Okay. You've got me hooked. What's the story?"

"A girl in Hazard got killed a few days ago. She was apparently friends with Tim McGee. He's been considered strange and creepy ever since he moved there with his mom at age seven...after his dad and his dad's girlfriend burned to death in a house fire, a fire that some people thought Tim started."

"Oh."

"Since then, he's apparently been drawing, and he draws weird things...which you'll see. His family was poor his whole life. He was rejected, not only by his peers, but also by adults around him. His mother died of an aneurysm about five years ago. Since then, he's been alone."

"Except for a girl who befriended him and now is dead."

"Exactly. Well, and the local mortician. He's taken Tim in for now, but it's an awkward situation, I think."

"Okay. Lay the drawings on me and I'll see what there is to see. I won't get very far tonight, but I will tomorrow and, with Kate's help, we'll make more progress."

"Thanks!"

Tony grabbed the sketchpad and handed it to Rachel. She opened it to the first page.

"Wow. You've got a live one, haven't you."

"We think so."

"Okay." She started looking at the drawings, moving from page to page fairly quickly. She paused on the first one of Mary. "This the girl?"

"Yeah. Mary Fields. Here's a photo." He gave her a photo they'd found of her alive.

"I'll get started."

Tony left her to do her thing and joined Gibbs getting the lowdown from Abby.

"Okay, that was a great idea about checking his school before moving," Abby said. "I found an old class photo from first grade."

She brought it up and pointed to a smiling little boy with a couple of teeth missing. His clothes looked a little worn and faded, but there was no question that he was happy.

"There he is. Isn't he cute?"

"Do you have anything besides a picture, Abbs?" Gibbs asked.

"Yes, of course. I just think he was a really cute little kid. Anyway, his school evaluations were way up there. I mean, they were talking about bumping him up a grade because he was already reading way above grade level _and_ doing third and fourth grade math in first grade. He's a really smart little kid."

"No problems?" Tony asked.

"Not before his dad left his mom. Not even a suggestion of it. Then, things change. I also found a class picture from second grade. It must have been taken just before they moved to Hazard."

Abby brought it up. He didn't look a whole lot different except that he wasn't smiling at all and his clothes seemed in worse shape. It was as if all the energy that had been apparent in the year before had been sucked away.

"Different, huh. There was an incident when he ran away from the school, right down the middle of the road. No indication of why. He got in trouble for pushing a couple of kids. And there are records of suggestions that he get counseling. Then, suddenly, he's gone."

"That's a big change," Tony said. "The school would have done counseling of some kind without charging for it, wouldn't they?"

"Probably."

"So why would his mom _not_ do that? Could she not see that he was having problems?"

"Can't ask her that, Tony," Gibbs said.

"Do you think there might be something at the house? A journal or something that she might have hidden? If McGee didn't go in there and left it as it was, there might be something left behind."

"We can check on that. Anything on the fingerprints, Abbs?"

"Not yet. I've got a bunch that belong to Tim, but I've also got some partials that are running. You know it takes longer, and some people don't have fingerprints on file."

"Do what you can."

"I always do."

Gibbs and Tony started back to the bullpen.

"Rachel's started looking at the sketchpad."

"Call Kate and see if she'd be willing to come in tonight."

"You think there's a rush, Boss?"

"I think that Dr. Mallard probably understands that town better than we do, and he knows that the people there might decide that burning the house wasn't enough. The sooner we have something, the better."

"Okay."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Ducky sat at the table in the kitchen, staring at the drawing Tim had begun. It didn't take a shrink to understand why the monster was made up of a lot of smaller monsters. A group of people had burned his home. It hadn't been just one person. He had some ability as an artist, Ducky supposed, but he knew that Tim's real strength was his intellect. Tim was incredibly smart, Ducky had found, so much so that it was almost a crime that he'd never gone to college, that he appeared to be resigned to living out his life here, scraping out a living when, given the right opportunities, he could have been a valued member of a company somewhere, earning six figures. Such were the vicissitudes of fate, he supposed. One shift here, one shift there and a person's life could be turned completely upside down.

Suddenly, he was startled by a pounding on the door. He got up and hurried to answer. He caught a glimpse of a police car out front and that warned him. He opened the door, but positioned himself solidly in the opening with no intention of admitting anyone without cause.

"Sheriff Drake. What can I do for you?" he asked.

"He's in here, isn't he, Ducky."

"Who do you mean?"

"Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. I should have known that you'd be the one who did it," Sheriff Drake said, angrily. "You're hiding Tim McGee in here, aren't you."

"I'm hiding no one. If I have chosen to invite a person to stay in my home, it is no concern of yours unless you think I'm committing a crime in doing so."

"Harboring a murderer."

"So far as I know, Timothy has not been booked for that crime," Ducky said, sternly. "He was arrested and released. If you were able to arrest him again, you would have done so. Given that situation, you know where he is if you need him. Otherwise, you have no reason to be here, and since no crime is taking place, you do not have leave to invade my home. Is that all, Sheriff?"

"You're willing to risk your life to protect a murderer?"

"Risk my life?" Ducky asked. "Is it going to come that? I thought more of the people in this town. I also thought more of you. Such threats are beneath the dignity of your office, Sheriff Drake. When the truth comes out, as it tends to do, even in cases like this, you will all owe Timothy much more than an apology. I pray that sanity reigns and that is all that is required. Good day, Sheriff."

He closed the door, locked it and shook his head. The sheriff should be the one diffusing the situation, not inflaming it. It was disgusting and only made Ducky more determined to protect Tim from him.

"Why are you doing this?"

The soft question startled him and he turned around. Tim was standing there, looking at him.

"Because it's the right thing to do, Timothy."

"Is it? Is it really?"

"Yes."

"Why? I don't have much of a life. I never did. You do. You always have. Your life is worth more than mine."

"No," Ducky said, firmly. "No one man's life is worth more than another. Your life is just as valuable as mine, perhaps moreso since you have more of life left to live than I have. Regardless, I consider both our lives to be valuable, and if it comes to the point that we are in physical danger, we will find help."

"Where?"

"From the agents who are investigating. I trust them. However, I think that, for now, you should avoid leaving the house as much as possible. I don't want people to have any excuse for what they may choose to do. Then, when things have been explained, they will have the humiliation of knowing that they blamed a man without cause."

"You believe me?" Tim asked.

"Yes, I do. I cannot accept the idea that you killed a woman you clearly valued very highly. You have said you didn't, and even Deputy Burley seems to believe you. I have no reason to doubt your word."

"Then, why does everyone else?"

"Because people sometimes refuse to see what is right in front of them. They have the truth and they hide it...sometimes, even from themselves in an effort to make things fit."

Tim suddenly looked afraid.

"What's wrong, Timothy?"

He just shook his head and retreated to the bathroom. He locked the door and wouldn't answer Ducky's requests that he open the door.

Eventually, Ducky chose to wait and hope for the best.

He sat down on a chair that gave him a sight line to the bathroom door and considered what he had said.

"Truth. That is such a loaded word. There is something about it that I think we all have missed."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

Kate sighed as she walked into work. She had hoped to have one night to recover from the conference and the travel time to and from it, but Tony's call had dashed that hope. Sure, she could have claimed that she wouldn't make it in time to do anything tonight, but she knew that would be a lie, and if Rachel was there already, she wasn't about to beg off.

She walked into the bullpen and saw her sister, sitting at her desk.

"Rachel, I think that's my seat."

"Ah, Kate! I'm glad to have you here. I was going to knock off in a little bit, but I'd like to get your opinion."

"Okay. You going to give me my chair?"

"Nope. Steal Tony's."

Kate grinned and rolled Tony's chair over to her desk.

"Tony brought me up to speed on the case, but seeing is believing."

"Take a flip through. It'll give you a sense of him. This is a complex guy."

Kate took the sketchpad and started looking through the pages. She was shocked by what she was seeing. He had taken a lot of time to draw these images. They weren't dashed off. He cared about getting this right. As disturbing as the pictures were, she could also appreciate what he had been doing with them.

"These aren't one-day drawings," she said. "This guy probably spent a few days on the main image with maybe a day on the smaller sketches around them. He's not trying to draw people. That means he doesn't have to worry about proportions. He can draw what he wants with complete freedom."

"Not complete," Rachel said. "This isn't something he's doing for fun. There's meaning to these drawings. He's hemmed in by whatever compels him to draw this. It happens over and over again...until about here." She flipped to a much later page. "Look at this."

"Wow," Kate said. "Who is this?"

"Mary Fields."

"The woman who was killed."

"Exactly."

Kate looked at the drawing and then flipped to the last few pages.

"All of her?"

"Looks like it. Except for the last one."

"This first one must have taken him a long time, even more than the monsters. The shading and the proportions, the details he chose to add... This takes time, and he's not an expert; so it would be harder for him. You can tell by the places where he had to erase and restart. He wanted to get it right, but it was a struggle. The interesting thing is that he was willing to spend all that time on it."

"I thought so, too, but I'm glad to get your more expert eye on it."

Kate smiled.

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

Rachel laughed. "Oh, yes, it will."

Kate stuck her tongue out.

"Kate, I thought _you_ were the mature one," Gibbs said.

Kate straightened and turned.

"It's really hard with my sister."

"I can see that. Getting anywhere?"

"It's too soon to draw any conclusions," Rachel said. "I don't like to make definitive statements without plenty of time to evaluate, especially since I haven't even met the man at all."

"But he really cares about these drawings," Kate said. "It's not something he just does and leaves aside. He takes time to do them and they mean something, even if it's just to him."

"Yes. I _would_ like to talk to him if I could have the chance."

"We'll see what we can do."

"Good. Let me know and I'll do my best to be free. For now, though, I've got to get going. Thanks for joining me, Kate."

"Yeah, yeah. You owe me."

Rachel just laughed and left. After she was gone, Kate looked at Tony and Gibbs.

"All right. Why are we doing this? I mean, it's not as though we really have a concrete reason for looking into this issue. I don't have a problem with it, but we do have an investigation already ongoing, right? The local sheriff has no interest in our interference."

"And he's ready to arrest a guy to keep his son from being implicated and because he hates him."

"I see. How long will Morrow give us to do it, though? If the sheriff complains enough, we won't be kept on it."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow and didn't speak. Kate knew what he was thinking: If there was a case to solve and an injustice to prevent, it didn't matter whether or not they were kept on the case. They would be on it, anyway.

"Okay. Who is this Mary Fields?"

"She moved to Hazard with her parents when she was in high school," Tony said. "Went away to college for a couple of years but moved back to Hazard three years ago."

"Why?"

"No official reason that we can see. We haven't spoken to her family, though."

"What family?"

"Father in Hazard. Mother died ten years ago in a car accident. Two older brothers, both living in California. So far as I know, they haven't come back."

"Not even when their sister was murdered?"

"Who knows if they've even been told? So far, we've used an investigation into the house fire as our cover for looking around. We don't need to talk to Mary's family for that."

"Gotcha. How long are you going to keep up that pretense, Gibbs?" Kate asked. "We really should know more about Mary than we do if we're going to find out why she was killed and by whom."

"We'll get there."

"All right. Is there anything else for tonight or can I go home and crash?"

"How was the conference?"

"Fine. Nothing too exciting, some interesting ideas about how to approach profiling."

"Secret Service there?" Tony asked.

Kate smiled. "Maybe."

"Did you string them along again?"

"Again? When have I ever?"

"I've heard some things."

 _Thwack!_

"Go home. We'll start again tomorrow," Gibbs said.

"You could just say that, Boss. I don't need the head slap every time."

"You don't get it every time."

Before they could leave, Abby came running in, excited as she always was.

"Gibbs! Gibbs! Wait! You can't let them leave yet!"

"What is it, Abby?" Kate asked. "I really need to get some sleep tonight."

"You'll want to hear this, Kate," Abby said. "Oh, and welcome back."

"Thanks."

"What, Abbs?" Gibbs asked.

"I was looking to see what else I could find about Tim's family. I was hoping that I could find some wonderful relative who would swoop in and save the day, but that isn't what I found."

"What did you find?"

"A criminal record."

"For Tim?" Tony asked. "How did you miss _that_?"

"No!" Abby said. "I wouldn't miss something so simple. It was for his mother."

"Okay. How did you miss _that_?"

"Because it was under a different name. She was booked as Maggie Millet."

"Maiden name?" Tony guessed.

"Nope. Or at least, it wasn't _her_ maiden name. It was the maiden name of her mother."

"And you're sure it was her, not her mother?"

Abby _tsk_ ed at him. "I know how to read dates, Tony. Margaret McGee's mother was long dead when this happened."

"What was the charge? And from when?" Kate asked.

"Prostitution. And it was from not long after the divorce. Just a couple of months. I never could find anything to say what they lived on after Lt. McGee hit the road. I guess she found something."

"Yeah. Something. Do you think Tim knew about this?"

"Well..." Abby hitched her shoulder uncomfortably. "She didn't appear to be working _for_ anyone. She was arrested at their home."

"So he probably knew _something_ ," Tony said. "But at seven...how much did he really understand?"

"And what did it mean to him? What did his mother tell him?" Abby asked. "Did he even ask?"

Gibbs said nothing for a few moments as he considered what Abby had just revealed.

"Kate, I want you to talk to Tim, tomorrow. I want to know how he reacts to a woman."

"Glad to know I'm considered such a valuable member of the team, Gibbs," Kate said, drily.

"You are!" Tony said. "You know that Gibbs and I can't pass ourselves off as women."

"That's for sure. I get reminded of _that_ every day."

"You two finished?" Gibbs asked, with another raised eyebrow.

"Yes, Boss."

"Yes, Gibbs."

"Good."

Kate grabbed her bag and followed Tony out of the building.

"So what's he like?" she asked as they walked. "This Tim McGee."

"Disturbed. By what, I don't know, but he's definitely messed up, Kate."

"Sounds like there are plenty of choices. But Gibbs has decided he's innocent?"

"Yep."

"What about you?"

"I think that, just looking at the pieces, maybe it could be him, but there's something about him. This guy is lost without a map, and I think that Mary Fields had given him something he needed. I just don't see that he would have taken that away from himself because he knows that there's something wrong with him."

"He does?"

"Yeah. He said that he can't react normally to things, even though he knows he should."

"Huh. Interesting. I wonder what Rachel would say about that. I wonder if there's something he's hiding even from himself."

"Well, I guess it'll keep until tomorrow."

"Most things will. G'night, Tony."

"Welcome back, Kate."

"Thanks."

They went their separate ways, but Kate couldn't get the pictures Tim had drawn out of her mind. There was something about them that had pinged her brain, but it wasn't a conscious ping yet.

Well, it would keep. Her mind would keep working on it, and eventually, it would come out.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

" _I know you're there, Tim! I know it! You can't hide from me! I told you not to leave me!"_

 _The deep, roaring voice got closer and closer as Tim cowered behind the house. There was nowhere to hide. He could feel the shaking and heat as the monster got closer._

" _Tim, you can't hide! You can never hide. You have to listen to me!"_

" _No, no, no," Tim whimpered from his hiding place._

 _The closer the voice came, the heavier the thump...and the more the voice changed to something else. Something more terrifying, but Tim couldn't tell what it was._

 _Then, suddenly, the house was ripped away and the monster was..._

Tim opened his eyes and started screaming. He heard noise from behind him, but he felt like he was blind. He couldn't find the monster, now.

"Timothy, it's all right. Can you hear me? It's all right. Wake up, now. Wake up."

"It wasn't me," he whispered. "It wasn't me. I promise that it wasn't me."

"I believe you. It's all right."

That voice. That wasn't the one from his dream. Trying to breathe calmly, Tim fought to see. He knew he wasn't blind. So there must be something he could see.

"Timothy? Can you hear me now?"

Hearing was easy. Seeing was the problem. Finally, he opened his eyes for real and he saw that he was in Ducky's living room, on his couch, where he had gone after regaining some semblance of control over himself. He hadn't screamed in his sleep for a couple of years. The bad dreams were always there, but the screaming had faded quite a bit since he'd befriended Mary.

"Timothy?"

Tim turned. There was Ducky, sitting beside him. Actually, Ducky had a protective arm around him. Tim stiffened. He didn't feel that he knew Ducky well enough to be comfortable like that. Ducky let him go, immediately.

"A dream?" Ducky asked.

Tim just nodded.

"Would you like to–?"

"No. It was just a dream. Dreams don't mean anything," he said, hating the shaking sound of his voice.

"They don't have to, but they can."

"Leave it, Ducky."

"Very well. Are you all right, now?"

"Yeah," Tim lied. He was never all right.

"Timothy, I know that you don't know me very well, but I _am_ trying to help you. I want things to be better for you, and if there's anything I can do to facilitate that..."

Tim felt a tightness in his throat and shook his head. He could see how much Ducky was willing to do for him. He just didn't see how anyone could make anything better.

"Very well. All you have to do is ask."

Tim nodded. Ducky patted him on the shoulder and then left him to himself. Tim sat quietly on the couch, thinking.

What did the monster turn into that scared him so much? He couldn't ever remember.

It wasn't the monster that was the worst part of the nightmares. The monster was scary and he didn't like it, but that wasn't the worst thing. It was what the monster turned into.

Tim shook his head and pushed away the thought. He didn't need to focus on that. It was easier to not bother with the problem. It wasn't going to be any easier if he understood it. He lay back on the couch and tried to get back to sleep, hoping that the nightmares wouldn't be so bad this time.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Ducky didn't go back to sleep after leaving Tim. He sat on his bed and thought about what Tim had said.

"What wasn't you, Timothy?" he said, softly. "Something important, I'm sure of it. If I could go back and ask your mother about your nightmares, what would she have said? Did you tell her? What are they about? Why won't you open up and let anyone in?"

Ducky sighed. He still remembered that day when he had gone to the McGee home to help investigate Margaret McGee's death.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

" _Right in there, Ducky."_

 _Ducky walked into the living room and saw Tim sitting on the couch. He wasn't moving, wasn't crying. It was as if he was frozen in place. Ducky had never seen someone look so cold at the death of a family member. Tim glanced at him as he walked by but said nothing._

 _Ducky walked into the bedroom._

 _Margaret was lying in her bed. The only sign of disturbance was that the blankets were on the floor. She looked very peaceful._

" _No sign of any violence?"_

" _None."_

" _I can't see anything on her body at first glance, but an autopsy will tell me more. He called it in?"_

" _Yeah. Apparently didn't seem too bothered by it. Like now. Said that his mother was dead and someone needed to come and see. Dispatch said that he might as well have been calling about a burned-out light bulb. He let us in and just pointed back to the bedroom. Didn't come with us. Didn't seem to care at all."_

 _Ducky nodded._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

How wrong he had been, Ducky knew, now. What he had accepted as a lack of emotion, a lack of caring, was a shocked numbness that could have been helped had he not been blinded by common perceptions. Even now, years later, he regretted that he had done nothing to help Tim through that period of grief, that he had been left alone until Mary had come and awakened life inside him.

How long would it take until Tim experienced enough kindness to trust that it was sincere and wouldn't be yanked away from him?

Quietly, Ducky got off his bed and walked back out to the living room where Tim insisted on sleeping. He seemed to be asleep again. He didn't sleep sprawled out as Ducky might expect of someone as tall as Tim was. He slept curled into a tight ball, as if he was hiding, even in sleep, from the monsters that plagued him.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

"Okay, Gibbs, since you're not letting Rachel talk to him first, what do you want me to do?" Kate asked as they got closer to Hazard.

"Ask him about Mary," Tony suggested. "Or maybe about his house. His mom's room is the only place that didn't completely burn on the inside."

"Can I mention the sketchpad?"

"Not yet," Gibbs said.

"Great. Can I ask about his drawing in general?"

"Sure."

"What are you expecting from this?"

"Either he'll be afraid of you because you're a woman."

"Or that he'll be more comfortable with me because I'm a woman?" Kate finished.

"Something like that."

"You think it'll be one or the other?"

"Yep."

"Okay. I'll do my best. What will _you_ two be doing while I'm running your science experiment?"

"Checking out the house and talking to Mary's father."

"You'd better take _really_ good notes, then. I want to know more about her."

Tony crossed his heart. "I promise."

"All right, all right. I'll do your dirty work, then."

Kate wasn't nearly as resentful as she was acting, but she had wanted to get a first-hand look at Mary's home life. She had a feeling that knowing who Mary was would lead them closer to who had killed her.

They stopped at Ducky's house and met him in the front yard.

"Good morning, Agent Gibbs, Agent DiNozzo. And who has joined you?"

"I'm Agent Todd," Kate said. "Nice to meet you, Dr. Mallard."

"And you as well. You're here to speak with Timothy, again?" Ducky asked Gibbs.

"I am," Kate said. "I hope that's not a problem."

"I don't think so, although knowing what will be a problem to Timothy is very difficult to suss out. Even if it is, he won't always say so. That means that when it becomes a large problem, he reacts to it much more strongly than you'd be ready for."

"You think that's likely in this case?"

"No, but I'll admit that I don't know him well enough to say with certainty."

"Well, it's good to have the warning."

"He's inside. After last night, I've told him to stay indoors as much as possible."

"What happened last night?" Gibbs asked.

Ducky sighed. "The sheriff came by and dropped a few thinly-veiled threats about what might happen to me if I continued to shelter Timothy."

"The _sheriff_ was doing that?" Kate asked, appalled.

"Yes. Agent Todd, there is no one in this town who hates Timothy more than the sheriff does. He is normally very good at his job, but he has let his emotion completely cloud his judgment."

"That's terrible."

"I agree, but regardless, Timothy is safe and sound inside. That will remain the case as long as he's here."

Ducky led them inside. Tim was standing in the living room, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. It was the first time that Kate had actually seen him, and she found herself surprised. Tony had told her about buying him some clothes, but he looked pretty normal, as far as that kind of thing went. The longer, shaggy hairstyle he had didn't suit him, and he was currently barefoot, but otherwise, if you didn't look him in the eye, you really wouldn't notice anything wrong.

...but his eyes gave him away. When he met her gaze for a few seconds, she saw a complex wash of emotions so intense, she was almost embarrassed to see it so obviously expressed. It was like reading someone's diary. You were seeing something that wasn't really meant to be seen. Then, he looked away from her and at Gibbs.

And, again, to her surprise, he didn't say anything. He just stood there. Staring. The question was obvious, but he didn't ask it.

"This is Agent Todd. She's on my team and she's going to ask you some more questions, if you don't mind, Tim."

Tim shrugged, as if he didn't care. If you didn't look in his eyes, you would think he was completely indifferent, but his eyes gave lie to that. He was anything _but_ indifferent. It was the rest of his expression that was so empty and wooden. She could see how this would put people off. You had to exert an effort to see what Tim McGee had to share, and apparently, no one had exerted that effort. It was easier to take the surface nothingness than to understand the troubled depths.

"Do you mind?" Gibbs asked.

"No."

That didn't seem to be exactly true, though. He was very unsure about her, Kate could see in his expressive eyes. Whether it was just general wariness or something that she didn't understand about him, he wasn't exactly glad to see her.

"We're going to check out your house again. We'll be back in a little while."

Tim nodded, glanced at Ducky and then looked at Kate again.

"Ducky says that I should stay inside. Do you want to sit down?" he asked.

Her first chance to hear his voice, and he seemed very soft-spoken. His voice was low and controlled.

"Sure. In here okay, Dr. Mallard?" Kate asked.

"That will be fine. I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything. Would you like some tea, Agent Todd?"

"No, thank you."

Gibbs and Tony left the house and Ducky left the room. Kate looked at Tim and decided that he'd be a tough nut to crack, even if he willingly answered her questions. He had unplumbed depths that would be difficult to get at. She desperately hoped that Rachel would get a chance to speak with him.

"What are your questions?" Tim asked. "I already answered a bunch before."

"First, why does the sheriff hate you?"

Tim actually seemed a little surprised. "How do you know he does?"

"Dr. Mallard told us."

"Oh."

"Is he wrong?"

"No."

"Then, why? Do you know?"

"Specifically? I don't know if I know or not, but _I_ didn't like _him_ , first," Tim said, sounding almost amused.

"Why not? What happened?"

He sobered. "He paid too much attention to my mother and I didn't like that."

There it was. The disturbing tone that Tony had mentioned. It was hard to miss it. When he said that he didn't like it, he _really_ meant it. In fact, _didn't like_ was probably a huge understatement. _Hate_ was probably an understatement.

"Why not? Was it inappropriate?"

"It was wrong. I didn't like it. I didn't want him there," Tim said again, his voice getting harder and a little louder.

"Did you tell him that?"

"I did more than that. An eight-year-old kid started shoving a member of the police force. He wasn't sheriff at the time, not that it would have mattered if he had been. I would have hated him just the same. I shoved him as hard as I could. Over and over, trying to get him away from her. I shouted at him and I wouldn't stop until he left my mother alone. You would have thought he was hitting her or something, but he wasn't. He was just talking to her, but I didn't like it. I didn't like the way he looked at her." Tim shook his head emphatically. "That started it. I still don't like him, and he hates me. If that's the only reason or there are others, I don't know."

"Seems like a long time to hold a grudge against a little kid."

"Yeah, it does."

Nowhere to go there, but Kate was interested that this hatred seemed to go back so far.

"I understand that you draw, Tim?"

"Yeah."

"I saw a picture you drew when you were younger of a monster attacking a house."

"Yeah."

"Why did you draw that?"

"Because it was a way to feel better."

"How does drawing help you feel better?"

"There are things in my head that make me feel wrong. I don't know how else to explain it. I don't have the words for how I feel. Just wrong. Sometimes, they build up and get really bad. I draw to get them out. When I don't I want to scream and sometimes, I do. Usually in my sleep. I don't know why I feel that way. I just do and I always have. So I draw. The river used to make me feel better, too."

"Used to?"

"Mary died there. I hate the river, now."

Kate got the feeling that Tim's seemingly-simplistic answers were the only way he could maintain any semblance of calm when talking about things that bothered him. He was a strange mix of intelligence and child-like confusion. The way he spoke might make people think he was deficient in some way, but it was not his intelligence that was the problem. It was the turmoil in his mind.

"I see. Tim, how long does it take you to draw a picture?"

"A long time. I want to get the details right."

"What's right? If it's a monster, it's not real. You can just make it up, can't you?"

"I have to get the details right. There are things that have to be there and I have to draw them right," Tim insisted. "I'm not really very good at drawing; so it's a lot harder for me to get it right. I mess up. Usually, I'll take a few days." Then, there was a brief, sad smile. It transformed his face. "Once, I drew a picture of Mary. It took me a long time, more than a week, but it was perfect when I finished. She was a river goddess, a naiad, rising up out of the river. That was before I really knew her."

Kate liked seeing that moment of pride in doing something well. While she couldn't say so right now, she agreed that he had done a really good job on the picture.

"Did you ever show it to her?"

The smile vanished. "No. I didn't ever show anyone what I drew. Sometimes, people would take them from me and look at them, but I kept them to myself. They're mine."

Kate could see that he _was_ possessive of them, but that probably meant there was something important about them, even if it was just for revealing his psyche. She was glad that his sketchpad had survived, and she hoped they could tell him about it sooner rather than later.

"I can see that. I like to draw, myself. Mostly it's portraits, but I've always liked it. It helps me think, get details down that I don't always notice consciously."

Tim looked at her suspiciously.

"No, I'm not lying," she said. "I really do like to draw. I can bring some of my sketches if you want to see them."

"No. You don't have to. I believe you."

"Thank you. Would you mind telling me about Mary?"

"Why? You can ask her dad. He's here in town. Everyone knows everyone here. You could ask anyone. Why me?"

"But you were her friend, weren't you?"

"Yeah."

"Then, what you know about her is important, too."

"Is it?"

"Yes. Very important."

"I didn't kill her," Tim said.

"I believe you," Kate said. And it was true. She did. She could see the same need that Tony had described. It was possible that they were all wrong, that Tim had snapped and killed her and then regretted it afterward, but at this point, it was equally likely, if not more so, that he was completely innocent.

"Yeah, right."

"What can you tell me?"

Tim shrugged again. The wall was back up.

"She wasn't happy about being back here."

"Do you know why she was?"

"No. We didn't talk about that."

"What did you talk about?"

"About what we'd do if we were free to do what we wanted. I said that I'd go to college and move away from here and never come back. She said that she didn't care what she'd do as long as she was free to do it and didn't have to feel trapped."

"You liked her?"

"Yes. She made me feel right. I was...actually happy when I was with her. Most of the time."

"How did she do that?"

"We would talk a lot. We would walk along the river or just sit on the bank and talk. We always watched the sunsets together. We never went anywhere else together. Just at the river."

"Why not?"

Tim shrugged again. "Where else is there to go?"

"You never dated at all?"

"No." Again, that troubled expression.

"What's wrong with dating, Tim?"

"I didn't kill her, okay? I didn't!"

"I didn't say you did. Tim, why would you think that?"

"He kept saying that I must have been, that we were...but we weren't! Never. I would never!" Tim got up and started pacing. "I'm not like that! We weren't like that! ...but she was...but it wasn't like that! It wasn't!"

Kate was surprised at Tim's outburst, but she thought that this must be pretty important.

"Like what, Tim? What is it that you would never do?"

Tim sat down on the couch again and just shook his head. Kate could think of a few things that he might be meaning, but she decided to take a stab at it. Given his mother's arrest for prostitution, it seemed like a possibility.

"Do you mean have sex?"

Tim took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. "We weren't dating. I already told the sheriff that. I told him over and over, even when he kept saying that we must have been."

"What about what you saw the night before?"

"I already told Agent Gibbs and Agent DiNozzo about it. It was wrong what they were doing, but not because we were dating."

"Okay. Tim, what was she to you?"

Tim visibly calmed down. "A friend, like I told you already. I never had a friend before. She was the first person that made me feel better, not worse. She looked at me like a real person. She told me once that people had said she should be scared of me, that I was a dangerous person. She said she wasn't scared. She'd never be scared of me." Tim smiled a little. " _I'm_ scared of me, but she wasn't."

"Why are you scared of yourself?"

"Because I'm so weird. Nothing works the way it should in my head. I know it. Everyone knows it. But Mary didn't care, and when I was with her, I didn't feel so weird most of the time. Sometimes, it was still wrong, but it wasn't always. She saw who I could be."

"Who could you be?" Kate asked.

"Someone. A real person. I feel like I'm just...existing, but I felt real with her."

Kate felt a strong rush of pity for Tim's life. It wasn't like she could go back and fix things now, but just by talking to him, she knew he had problems, and she wanted to help him. That was why she asked a question she wasn't sure Gibbs would approve of.

"Tim, my sister is a psychiatrist. She gets called in to help people who are involved in crimes, as witnesses, as victims. She gets asked to help them."

"So?"

"So, would you be willing to talk to her?"

Tim raised an eyebrow and, for a moment, looked like any other normal guy would. He was wondering where this was going.

"About what?"

"You said that you know things are wrong in your head. That's what she would try to help you with."

Tim looked wary.

"Why?"

"Because you need the help."

"Yeah, but...but I couldn't afford something like that. I can barely afford to buy _food_ most of the time. I would have been homeless already if it weren't for the fact that the house was already paid for."

"She wouldn't need pay from you. She has a contract with the state."

"Why would you do this? Why would she? Mom didn't ever do anything. She wanted to hide me, not help."

"Maybe she didn't know _what_ to do."

"She didn't _do_ anything," Tim said. He didn't sound angry about it. It was just a statement of fact.

"She loved you, didn't she?"

Tim shrugged. "Love doesn't mean anything. It doesn't do anything. It doesn't help."

Kate kept herself from showing her feelings about that statement. To grow up thinking that love didn't matter at all. It was sad.

"How many more questions are you going to ask me?" Tim asked.

"Just one. Do you know why Mary felt trapped here?"

Tim shook his head. "We never talked about that stuff. We were getting away from that kind of thing at the river. Why bring it up?"

"Good point. Okay. Thanks for talking to me, Tim." Kate figured that she could quiz Ducky about a few things until Gibbs and Tony were finished at Tim's house.

"I don't have anything else to do, right now. It's hard just to sit around and do nothing."

Tim got up and started to leave. Then, he stopped and turned back.

"You really draw?" he asked.

"Yes."

"You weren't just kidding?"

"No. I really like drawing."

"Are you fast?"

"I can be. I'm not always. I'll take my time if I want it to be perfect, but I can sketch pretty quickly."

Tim came back and sat down. He looked at her very earnestly. She had no idea what was coming next.

"Would you let me watch you draw?"

"Why, Tim?"

"Because I want to see how someone does it when they know how. I got kicked out of art class. The teacher didn't like what I was drawing. She said I was threatening people. I wasn't, but no one listened to me. No one ever listened to me. I never got to learn about how to do it and I really wanted to. Computers are easy. You just follow the steps and things work. When they don't, there are limited things you can try. People think computers are hard, but they're not. Computers are easy. They make sense. They're _made_ to make sense. Drawing is different. There are no steps, really. It's just doing what's right and knowing what that is. I don't."

"I'm not an expert, Tim."

"But you know how. I want to watch someone who knows how. Would you do that?"

"Okay." Kate didn't know how long Tony and Gibbs would be, anyway. This would give her something to do. "What do you want me to draw?"

"A person. I don't care who."

"All right."

Kate took out a piece of paper and started to draw. As she did, she glanced at Tim and saw a glimpse of the kind of person he could have been. He was focused on watching her hands and he was giving it all his attention. He _wanted_ to know. Yes, there was an intensity to his gaze that didn't exactly fit with watching someone draw a picture, but still... What a shame that life had kept him from what he could have been.

Well, better late than never. She focused on her drawing, wanting to make it as good as possible, if that's what Tim wanted to see.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"I'm not seeing anything secret in here," Tony said, from the closet. "It's just a bunch of women's clothes. ...and no sign that she was carrying on her former profession in Hazard. Probably not a large pool for clientele here, though."

Gibbs walked back into the bedroom. He was still surprised that it hadn't burned like the rest of the place. Yes, there was fire damage, but it wasn't nearly so bad as the rest of the house. Had the people who started the fire been shocked by the room themselves? Maybe they had intentionally set the fire away from a place that was obviously a shrine. Maybe there were limits even to what a mindless mob would do.

"Are you ready to stop pretending that the fire is what we're investigating?" Gibbs asked.

Tony grinned. "Oh, sure. It's getting boring, anyway. I can't wait for the sheriff to find out. Mary Fields' house?"

Gibbs nodded.

They left the burned-out shell, knowing that the most important information was not to be found there. They had the address of Mary Fields' home, where her father still lived.

They drove over to a small but well-kept house and knocked on the front door.

"Come in!"

They walked into the house, not knowing what to expect. Martin Fields had no record. There was literally nothing about him so far beyond a date of birth. They knew that he had run the local grocery store, but that was no longer the case. He apparently hadn't graduated from high school. No unexpired driver's license. No car. Not that it really meant he hadn't ever driven. He could be driving illegally. They hadn't been able to get anything from the IRS as yet; so if he filed his taxes, they didn't know about that. Normally, they would have taken more time to search for information before coming to him, but they were here now and they could still find out more about him later.

"Mr. Fields?"

A man came out from a back room. He had a kind of quavery look to him, but his eyes were bright and inquiring.

"You're lucky you caught me," he said.

"Why?"

"Because I was about to drown my sorrows and I wouldn't have been conscious for the rest of the day. Who are you?"

"Agent Gibbs and Agent DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "We're investigating your daughter's death."

"Why bother? The sheriff said it was that McGee kid."

"We don't think so."

"Oh." He gave the due consideration. "Well...will that bring her back?"

"No."

"Then, what's the point?"

"Justice," Gibbs said.

Martin shrugged. "Justice don't mean much. Don't change anything. It's just words. Can't fix anything that's broke."

"Can we ask you some questions?"

"I suppose. I need to sit down, though."

He walked over to a chair and they both noticed how carefully he lowered himself down. He noticed their glances.

"You can ask."

"What's wrong with you?" Tony asked.

"I'm dying. Taking a lot longer than it should."

"From what?"

"Some kind of cancer. Don't remember which one. One name or another, don't really matter. They told me when I went to a doctor about five years ago. Said that it'd kill me. It's sure taking its sweet time doing it, but I think it's finally getting closer. When the pain gets too bad, I take pills that pretty much knock me out. Doc here in town prescribes them for me. That's what I was about to do."

"You only went to a doctor five years ago and that's it?" Tony asked.

Martin laughed. "When a doctor tells you that you're dying, son, what's the point of going back? All he'd be doing is charging money to tell me that I'm still dying."

"I guess. No second opinion?"

"Nope. I kept it to myself until I started having trouble. Even then, I haven't told anyone in town. I had to turn my business over to my manager. Good kid. Kinda young for it, but he's a good kid. Told him I was getting too old to deal with groceries. He gave me a good price for it and I gave him a good deal. Mary's the only one of my kids who cared enough to come back and help me out. When she first came, I thought it'd only be for a little while. How long can it take to die? Turns out that it can take a long time. I told her to go back to school once. She said she didn't want to. Who was I to make her do something she didn't want to do? She was an adult."

"So that's why she came back to Hazard?" Tony asked.

"Yep. To take care of me. My sons said I should leave here and move to the coast with them, but I'm not leaving my home until they take me out feet first. I was born here, and I'm going to die here. I lived in the city for a few years, worked hard, but it wasn't what I wanted. So we moved back here when the store came up for sale. My children didn't like it and they left as soon as they could. Never came back...except Mary."

Gibbs could see that stubbornness that would keep a man in his home. He didn't care about treatments or anything like that. All he wanted was to stay in his home until he died. He didn't even care if it messed up other people's plans. It wasn't meanness, just a kind of ongoing selfishness.

"Did you tell them about what happened?"

"Nope. Don't remember their numbers and they haven't cared enough to call. Not once in three years, and _my_ number hasn't changed. If they wanted to know what was happening here, they'd ask. If they want to move on with their lives, that's fine with me."

"Did you know anything about your daughter's friendship with Tim McGee?"

"Nope. She didn't tell me anything about it. I didn't know they even knew each other until the sheriff told me. None of my business. That's the way things were for us. She did her thing and I did mine...except when I needed her help."

"Did you know that someone burned the McGee house?"

"Nope. Not surprised, though. There are people who've just been waiting for an excuse."

"Including you?"

"I haven't given Tim McGee one thought since I started dying. Who cares about some weird kid who keeps to himself? He might be crazy, but he's not loud about it. Better than some people in this town, I can tell you that. Bunch of busybodies. If he was bugging me here, I would have said something. As long as he stayed away, he might as well have been on the Moon. And he did."

"So you never noticed that your daughter was worried about anything?"

"Well, she didn't seem to like the sheriff much, but that could be because she didn't like his son. Never did. He was always a bully in school, and he tried to pretend he'd changed, but he hadn't. Bad blood, really. You can't change that. He's bad all the way through, if you ask me. I had to kick him out of my store more than once. Would have given him a real kick if I thought I could have got away with it. If anything else bothered her, that wasn't my business unless she told me. And she didn't."

This sounded like a reason to not enjoy her time back. Her father was dying, but taking a long time to do so. He didn't seem to have much thought for his daughter unless she was right there. He cared about himself and his impending death. It might make sense, but it wouldn't make life easier.

"You got any more questions, son?" Martin asked. "Because I'm hurting and I'm ready to take my pills."

"No. That's it. Thank you."

"You can see yourselves out."

Martin got to his feet and shuffled out of the room without a backward glance. Tony looked at Gibbs and then they left the house. They didn't say anything until they were back in the car and driving away.

"Man, that's a guy who puts _my_ dad to shame," Tony said. "My dad doesn't care much about showing up, but he does care...in his own way. She put her whole life on hold for him, and he doesn't even care about finding who killed her. All he cares about is whether or not he's dead."

"Some people are like that. Can't care about more than one thing at a time. Pain is pretty distracting."

"Yeah, but it's his daughter and she was murdered. You'd think there could be _something_ more that he could say."

"Apparently not."

Tony shrugged. "Well, I took good notes, but I think Kate will still be disappointed."

Gibbs smiled a little. "She'll be a lot more disappointed about the facts than about what you recorded."

"Yeah. _I'm_ disappointed. She'll be livid."

"Let's exchange notes, then."

"And maybe Ducky has a copy of the autopsy report. We can get a good sense of that part of it without bugging Stan for it."

Gibbs nodded and they headed back to Ducky's house. When they got there, they went to the front door and knocked. It took a moment, but Ducky opened the door and let them in.

Kate was sitting beside Tim on the couch and she looked almost disappointed to see them. She glanced at Tim and then at them.

"Hey, Gibbs."

She stood up and set a piece of paper down on the coffee table.

"Dr. Mallard, do you have a copy of the autopsy report on Mary Fields?" Gibbs asked, keeping his voice low so as not to alert Tim to the question.

"Yes, of course. I keep copies of every autopsy I perform."

"In your office?"

"Yes, although I don't want to leave Timothy alone here."

"You can get it from here," Tim said.

Ducky turned.

"What do you mean, Timothy?"

"That...report." Tim didn't look happy about the subject matter. "You don't have to go there to get it if you don't want to. I set it up so that you can access the files on your computer there on your computer here. I told you about it before, Ducky."

"I must not have understood."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow about Tim's obvious eavesdropping.

"You weren't talking that softly," Tim said without apology. "It wasn't hard to hear. You could go. I know how to be alone. ...but if you want to stay, you can get to the report from your computer here. You always leave your computer at the morgue on. If you didn't do that, this wouldn't work."

"Can you show us, then, Timothy?"

Tim nodded. He got up and led them all to the study where Ducky kept his computer. He sat at the desk and booted it up. Then, he walked them through what he was doing, step by step, showing them how he had created a VPN for Ducky's computers and how to access Ducky's work computer. Then, he did it and got up.

"I don't want to see that," he said. "Are you done with me?"

"For now, yes."

"Okay."

Tim left the room quickly. Ducky watched him go and then shook his head.

"He was extremely reluctant to go into the morgue the first time I asked for his help upgrading my computers, and he wouldn't go near any of the other rooms beyond my office there. For all that he's drawn images of it, I think death is very troubling to him. He doesn't know how to deal with it."

"He just did all this without you asking for it?" Kate asked.

"I guess he did. I wouldn't have known it was possible. So I couldn't have asked for it myself. I told you. Timothy is quite smart. If he did this, he would have had to figure it out all on his own. He hasn't had any official training beyond high school, and even then, I'm sure the training was as little as the teacher could get away with."

"The autopsy?"

"Oh, yes." Ducky brought it up. "Death was due to strangulation. There was no water in the lungs. The body was waterlogged and that interfered with the determination of the time of death. The water will cool the body down more quickly than air, but at the same time, can keep it from cooling as much as it might do in the air. The instrument causing death was likely the scarf found wound around her neck."

"Photos?"

"I'm afraid not. Those are in the possession of the police. You'll have to get them from that office. However, the scarf was positively identified as one belonging to Timothy. It was one he had worn almost constantly from a young age. The scarf is also in the sheriff's office."

"Of course, it is," Tony said, grimacing.

"Yes, quite. You're not likely to get a hold of it, I'm sorry to say."

"Anything else?" Gibbs asked.

"There was no sign of bruising on her arms or legs. Not her face, either. Either she knew her attacker or he was strong enough to restrain her, using only the scarf. If she caused any damage to her killer, that was lost during her time in the river. Her body was lodged in the eddies near the bridge. It took a full day to find her."

"How did they know she was missing?"

"Her father called the police when she didn't come home. They started searching for her."

"And then, arrested Tim the next morning," Kate said.

"Yes."

Ducky printed off the autopsy report.

"I shouldn't give this to you, but I am, if only because I know that Sheriff Drake would rather spit in your face than help you find proof of Timothy's innocence. Whether or not this will help, I can't say, but it's something."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Not at the moment."

They left the study. Tim was sitting on the couch in the living room, staring at a piece of paper. Gibbs raised an eyebrow at Kate. She smiled a little and walked over.

"I'm sorry it's not quite finished, Tim," she said.

He looked up and his expression was troubled.

"This isn't me."

"Yes, it is," Kate said. "I draw better when I can see the person I'm drawing. I can draw from memory, too, but I like to see the person. You were right there and you're who I drew."

"I don't look like this," Tim said.

"You did while you were watching me."

Tim looked at the paper again. Then, he thrust it at her.

"I don't want it."

Kate took it from him.

"All right. I'm sorry if you don't like it."

Tim shook his head and left the room.

"What was that?" Ducky asked.

"I'm not sure," Kate admitted. "He asked me to draw someone. He wanted to see how I did it. While he was watching, he had the most interesting expression on his face. So I drew him."

She held up the piece of paper. Gibbs was surprised. It _was_ Tim, but it was a different version of him. He looked intent, focused, not disturbed.

"Gibbs, I asked him about meeting with Rachel. He didn't say no. I really think he should. Sooner rather than later."

"Who?" Ducky asked.

"My sister. She's a psychiatrist, and Tim needs one. He is one person who desperately needs that kind of help. It wouldn't help all at once, but it would be a start."

"Would she come here?"

"I think so. Do you think Tim wouldn't be willing to go with us?"

"It's so hard to tell with him, but he has shown a remarkable reluctance to leave Hazard, even when it would make sense to do so, even though he hates the town and everything about it."

"He said his mother brought him here to hide him," Kate said. "Maybe that's why."

"Perhaps. I couldn't say for certain."

Gibbs looked around the room. There really wasn't much security in this place, and if the people in town lost their heads, it could be serious. He pulled out one of his cards and wrote everyone's numbers on it.

"Look, Dr. Mallard, if there's a problem, I want you to call one of us. If you don't get me, try the other numbers. I don't want you two getting stuck without help."

Ducky took the card.

"I do hope that this won't be necessary, but I thank you for your concern, Agent Gibbs. With the obvious exception of Sheriff Drake, I trust the officers in this town to watch out for me, as well."

"We'll be back tomorrow morning."

"Very well. Thank you for your efforts. I know they've been sincere."

They shook his hand and left the house, hoping that the precautions wouldn't be needed.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

Kate sat down at her desk and stared at the sketchpad.

"What's up, Kate?" Tony asked.

"There's something I'm missing in these pictures. Something important."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because of what Tim told me today. He said that he took a long time because he had to get all the details right. That means that everything he put on these pages is _supposed_ to be there. I thought he was just drawing smaller pictures around the sides so that he didn't waste any paper, but that's not it. He meant to have all this be just one picture. Every page."

"Maybe not. I mean, just because he said that doesn't mean that he meant it for everything he drew."

"I think it does," Kate said. "It's just that there are so many little drawings, along with the larger one, that I don't know what it is that's pinged on my brain."

"You'll find it."

"I just hope I do in time."

"For what?"

"I don't know. I don't like that we're so far away from Hazard. If something _does_ go wrong, we're almost an hour's drive away. A lot can happen in an hour."

Tony nodded and sat down at his own desk.

"Yeah. I agree. It's not ideal, but Deputy Burley is out there, and he was on Gibbs' team before I was. He's got his head on straight and he'd try to intervene, at least."

"Well, that's something."

Then, Kate put the sketchpad aside as Gibbs came in with Abby in tow.

"So...where are we at?" she asked. "You guys interviewed Mary Fields' father. I talked to Tim and asked him about her, too. What do we have?"

Tony pulled his chair out from behind his desk. Kate sighed and did the same. Abby perched on the edge of Gibbs' desk and Gibbs stood where he was.

Abby started. "Mary Fields. Youngest child of three. Father, Martin Fields, grew up in Hazard and left to work in the capital for a few years. Moved back to Hazard and ran the grocery store there. His wife, Maryanne, was from Barrington, about thirty miles away from Hazard. Oldest son Martin, Junior. Second son, Marcus. Both living in California, Martin in Sacramento and Marcus in San Diego."

"Mary went to college in Omaha but dropped out to come back here and take care of her dad after his cancer got worse," Tony said.

"That's a pretty big sacrifice," Kate said.

"And one her dad doesn't seem to appreciate at all. He was pretty blase about what she did for him. He's focused pretty much only on himself and how much longer it'll take for the cancer to kill him. He doesn't care about who killed her. He assumed it was Tim because Sheriff Drake told him it was, but he's not going for revenge or anything like that. It would take too much effort."

"And if he's dying of cancer, he's not likely to be able to strangle his daughter, whether he had a motive or not," Abby added.

"Yeah. He was pretty frail when we talked to him."

"And he's a jerk," Kate said. "Cancer or not, I would have thought he'd care about finding who killed his only daughter."

"Hey, at least he's not on a McGee vendetta like the sheriff," Tony said.

"Thank goodness for small favors?" Kate asked.

"Yeah. I'll take what I can get."

"So she was back with her father who didn't care about her and only cared about himself. No wonder she wanted to get out."

"What did Tim tell you?"

"That she felt trapped and all she wanted was to feel like she could go where she wanted without feeling trapped. She probably didn't feel like she could leave when her dad was dying, but it doesn't sound like she was getting much care there. Anything else?"

"Oh, her dad did say that she didn't like Sheriff Drake, either."

"Why not?" Kate asked. "Because of Tim?"

"I don't know. _He_ didn't ask and she apparently didn't volunteer the information. He thought it might have been because she didn't like his son who was, by Mr. Fields' description, a bully."

"And yet, she was making out with him in his car the night before she was killed," Abby said. "Why?"

"You think he could be the one who killed her?" Kate asked.

"Stan thinks that Sheriff Drake is worried about that being the public perception, but he didn't think it was likely."

"But if Mary didn't like him, then, why would she be with him?" Kate asked. "You think we could talk to this guy?"

"We could, but that would definitely tip the sheriff off that we're investigating."

"We could dress it up to be about the house fire. Say that we're making sure it wasn't done because his girlfriend got killed...and that might lead to confirmation or denial of the relationship," Kate suggested.

"Oh, I like it when you get devious, Kate," Abby said. "You act straight as an arrow most of the time, but then, you let out your natural deviousness and it's great!"

Kate rolled her eyes, but then, she looked at Gibbs.

"I want to get Rachel talking to Tim _and_ I want to ask him about the sketches and let him know that we have his sketchpad. It will mean a lot to him that we have it and he can have it back, and I really think that there's some kind of clue in it."

"Clue to what?" Gibbs asked. "To Tim or to the case?"

"Maybe both," Kate said. "But definitely to Tim. Maybe if we could get through some of this stuff, he could tell us more."

"More about what?" Tony asked.

"You said before that you thought he was lying about having some idea of who killed Mary. Maybe it would get him to say it, if you're right." Kate pressed on. "Even if it doesn't help solve this case, you said yourself that it was probably related to what happened to his dad. It might solve that...if there's anything to solve. ...and honestly, even if it doesn't help with the case at all, doesn't this guy deserve a chance to live a normal life? If we can help with that, we should do it. We're already doing stuff we really shouldn't be doing, anyway."

Gibbs considered for a moment.

"Please, Gibbs? Tony's right. This is one messed up guy, and we could change that."

"Rachel's okay with it?"

"Yes."

"Do you know that or are you just saying it?"

"I know it."

In reality, Kate hadn't talked to her sister since the night before. However, that wasn't as important as getting Gibbs to agree to start trying to help Tim in more ways than finding who had killed Mary.

"Okay. Bring her along tomorrow. We have copies of all the pictures he drew?" Gibbs asked.

"Every page," Abby said, nodding. "Rachel has a copy and we have a copy here."

Another brief silence. This time, Kate just waited.

"Tomorrow, you take Rachel to Dr. Mallard's place. Have her talk to him _before_ you start asking him about the sketches. See what he's willing to say. DiNozzo..."

"We're going to really start stomping on toes, I take it? Alan Drake, Jr.?" Tony asked.

Gibbs nodded.

"Abbs...see what you can find about the sheriff. Also, see if you can find more about Margaret McGee. I think that may be important."

"On it, Gibbs. ...well, tomorrow, I'll be on it. Right now, I'm tired. I vote we go home."

Gibbs just nodded again. They all started to pack up to leave.

"Kate?"

Kate paused and looked back at Gibbs. She nodded. He wanted to talk, but it must not be official stuff. Tony gave her a sympathetic look and headed out.

"What is it, Gibbs?"

"What did you see that makes you so determined?"

Kate hesitated. Sometimes, Gibbs tended to be dismissive of her intuitive leaps when it came to analyzing people. It wasn't just about profiling. There was a feeling she got about people. It had helped them on occasion, but it had also backfired. She knew that Gibbs was a little skeptical of her new focus.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"He asked me to draw for him. It was something he really wanted, but it wasn't about his problems. It was about wanting to learn something. Gibbs, he told me that computers are really easy. They're simple. They're easy. Nothing about them challenges him. Drawing is hard. That's not how it is for most people. He doesn't even seem to realize how smart he is, how far he could have gone in other circumstances. No one has ever told him that he's worth anything, maybe not even his mother. He doesn't look on her as being a source of comfort. Then, when I was drawing him, I saw it in his eyes...the person he could have been if it hadn't been for the crappy hand life has dealt him. He has so much potential, and all of it is being wasted because of where he is, how he grew up, and the problems he has. If I can do something to help, then, I think I have a moral obligation to do that, whether it's part of the case or not."

"And if the evidence proves us all wrong and he _is_ the killer?"

"Then, at least, we tried," Kate said, firmly.

"Okay."

Gibbs walked away, and Kate headed home. She pulled out her phone to call Rachel.

" _Dr. Cranston."_

"I'll never get used to you having that last name."

" _Kate, I've been married for years."_

"I know. Hey, you have time tomorrow to go to Hazard?"

" _Gibbs gave the okay?"_

"Yes."

" _Then, yes. I do. I know he won't have unlimited patience."_

"He wants you to talk to Tim first, and then, we'll bring up the sketchpad."

" _All right. Since the drawings are later and I want to focus on his childhood, that should be fine."_

"Thanks, Rach."

" _Kate...have you ever told them?"_

Kate didn't have to ask what she meant.

" _I can see you going after this for more reasons than Tim McGee himself."_

"No, I've never told them."

" _You should. It's not like they'd look down on you for it."_

"No. They just might. I'm still very much in the minority and Gibbs, at least, is kind of a chauvinist. I don't want them to know about how close it was."

" _The Secret Service still wants you back."_

"Yes, but I don't want to be back with them. The idea is appealing, not the reality."

" _Squandered potential?"_

"Maybe, but preserved sanity. I still have dreams about Ari sometimes. Staring down a crazed sniper tends to get inside your brain."

" _You know you can talk if you need to."_

"I know. Right now, I'd rather leave Ari and the Secret Service and all that went on in the past."

" _As I'll be telling Tim tomorrow, the past has a way of affecting the present and future if we suppress it."_

"I'll keep that in mind, Rachel. Right now, I'd rather just go home and sleep."

" _All right, I'll stop. Just remember what I said."_

"I will."

Kate hung up and took a deep breath and then, let it out with a shudder. Before joining Gibbs' team, she'd been heavily involved in trying to find a sniper out for revenge. The profiling and subsequent confrontation had been too much for Kate to take and she'd requested a shift away from DC and all the politics there. Gibbs had apparently asked for her and he hadn't implied any familiarity with her history. As far as Tony and Abby knew, Kate was just a transfer. She'd rather keep it that way. At least, for now.

If Tim wanted to keep his past in the past, he would have to acknowledge it, first. As Rachel knew already, Kate had talked about it and been debriefed. In Tim's case, it seemed that, as much as he tried to ignore what had happened, it was still controlling him all these years later.

That needed to be stopped if they could do anything about it.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

"Okay, Boss," Tony said. "How are we going to go about this?"

"You forget how to do interviews, DiNozzo?" Gibbs asked.

Tony smiled. "Nope. ...but I don't think I've ever been in this particular situation before. Usually, even when the local LEOs hate us, they still care about doing things right. This sheriff doesn't seem to have that virtue. You want to use Kate's idea?'

"For now."

"Okay. That's all I need to know."

"There he is," Gibbs said, gesturing to a man coming out of the post office.

They got out and strode over to him.

"Alan Drake, Jr.?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. Who are you?" he asked, looking just slightly wary, not enough to look guilty.

"Agent Gibbs and Agent DiNozzo, SBI. We're investigating the McGee house fire."

"Well, I didn't set it," Alan said. "That place is probably disgusting inside with the freak living there. Have you seen the kinds of clothes he wears? That whole place is probably one big garbage dump. I wouldn't risk contamination by going anywhere near it."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"Look, no one likes him. No one has _ever_ liked him. He's a weirdo, and everyone knows it. He'd do us all a big favor if he just left."

"So...if you didn't do it, where were you?" Gibbs asked.

"Why are you asking me? Did someone say I had anything to do with it? Because that's just ridiculous."

"You were seen getting pretty heavy with Mary Fields the night before she disappeared," Tony said. "If you two were dating..."

Alan laughed at him. "We weren't dating. She hated me."

"She had a funny way of showing it, based on what we know."

"I'm not kidding. I'm not saying this to get out of the house fire thing."

"Convince us," Gibbs said.

Alan rolled his eyes as if this was just one more inconvenience, not a murder.

"I'm stuck here until I get accepted to grad school. I could try and get a job somewhere else, but I'd have to pay rent. Here, everything I make is mine. I've been applying to grad schools. That's what I was doing in the post office just now. Some of the places I'm applying to still require print applications."

"I'm waiting to hear what this has to do with Mary Fields."

"I don't know if you've noticed, but this isn't exactly a happening place. I've been hanging around here for two years now, and there's just not much to do. Mary was a challenge. I like challenges. The bigger the challenge, the bigger the payoff, if you know what I mean. And before you ask, no, I wasn't raping her. No, there was no assault."

"So, if she didn't like you, how did you get her to give you the time of day?"

Alan grinned. "My dad's the sheriff. He wields a pretty big stick in this town, _and_ he just happens to really not like the town freak."

Tony could see, now, where this was headed, and he was coming around to the same opinion Tim had of this guy. He was a grade-A jerk.

"I don't know why Mary cared about him. Maybe she was bored. It's got to be pretty dull hanging out with her dad. I don't know how it could be bad enough to lead her to the freak. I don't care how. I just made use of it. I might have let it slip that I could make things easy for her little weirdo friend or I could make them hard. She could have full control over that choice."

"You consider that consensual?" Gibbs asked.

"Hey, she wasn't holding back. I'm not exactly a virgin, guys. I know how all that works. She knew a good thing when she had it."

"So...you're saying that..."

"That Mary enjoyed herself. She might have hated me, but she had a good time that night. I'm not out for revenge. And I didn't burn down the freak's house."

"Do you know who did?"

"Nope. I don't go asking questions like that. I have better things to do with _my_ time." He leered. "You have anything else you want to know?"

"No. Thank you," Gibbs said.

"Good. I can't wait to get out of this dump."

Then, Alan walked away down the street. Gibbs and Tony walked back to the car.

"I'm all for playing the field, Boss, but that guy is a real piece of work. I wish I thought he _was_ guilty. I'd love to wipe his smile right off his face."

"Kate would agree."

Tony laughed. "He wouldn't be walking if Kate had been here. She would have smashed his gloating face into the pavement. ...and I'd be cheering her on. ...but I don't think he killed Mary. He doesn't have anything to lose or gain by it. To him, this is all just a game to pass the time. Nothing worth getting worked up over. Whoever killed her _wanted_ to do it. He doesn't care enough."

"Yeah."

"So, where does that leave us? Not her dad. Not the sheriff's son. We're running out of suspects, Boss."

As Tony expected, Gibbs said nothing.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"I don't usually have sessions in people's homes," Rachel said. "I'm going to be a little out of place."

Kate smiled. "I think Tim would keep you on your toes no matter _where_ you were."

"That bad?"

"Not bad, necessarily, but you really can see it, Rach. He's got big problems."

Rachel looked at the house. Then, she looked at Kate.

"I'm not so sure I should go into this without telling him about the sketchpad."

"If it comes up, then, do it, but I think you should, at least, start out following what Gibbs says."

Rachel grinned. "I'll remember that. Oh, he's watching us."

Kate saw the curtain move.

"I already told him about you, but he may not have believed that I meant it."

"Based on what you told me about him, I can easily see that being the case. Can't be helped...yet."

Kate knocked on the door and waited. As she expected, it was Ducky who answered, not Tim.

"Dr. Mallard, this is my sister, Dr. Rachel Cranston. She's here to talk to Tim, if that's all right."

Ducky looked surprised. "My, you people certainly do move quickly, don't you."

"We try."

"Well, there's nothing else to do but see what Timothy thinks of it. Come in."

They walked into the house. Rachel looked around. It wasn't opulent, by any means, but it was neat, clean, and well-cared for. Then, she saw the blankets on the couch.

"Is he sleeping out here?" she asked.

Ducky nodded. "Yes, he is. I don't know why. I offered him my spare room. It would give him more privacy, but he's refused."

Then, he walked toward the kitchen.

"Timothy!" he called out.

"He slept on the couch in his house, didn't he?" Rachel asked softly.

"Yes, but there was only one bedroom there."

"But why him on the couch, not his mom? Why was _she_ in the bedroom? Maybe she _was_ still involved in her former occupation."

"I don't know. You can ask him yourself."

"You're the shrink?"

Rachel got her first real look at Tim, and based on everything she'd learned, nothing she saw was surprising, not even the glint of high intelligence in his eyes. He might have been kicked to the curb his whole life, but he was far from stupid _and_ far from trusting.

"That's right. I'm Dr. Cranston. Rachel, if that makes you feel more comfortable."

"Nothing makes me feel comfortable," Tim said.

It wasn't spoken with any kind of regret. It was just a stating of facts. That spoke to a lifetime of discomfort, to the point that he didn't know how to _not_ feel it, at least to some degree. One could get used to almost anything, and Tim clearly had. He didn't expect anything to change.

"Do you have any problem with speaking with me?"

Tim shook his head, but he looked wary. He had no idea what she was going to do, and he didn't trust that it would be good. Ruefully, Rachel had to admit to herself that it wouldn't _feel_ like it was anything good, even though it would be necessary.

"Excellent," she said. "Dr. Mallard, do you have a private space where Tim and I could talk?"

"Yes, the study should suffice," Ducky said. "It's that door just behind you."

Rachel gestured to Tim and he led her to the room. They walked in and Rachel closed the door behind them.

"Is that all right, Tim?"

He nodded.

"All right, have a seat."

Tim sat, but very stiffly.

"Now, I want you to understand from the outset that I'm going to be asking you hard questions. They may be questions you don't want to answer, but I'm not doing this for fun. I'm doing it because I really think it will help if you answer them. Can you trust me that far?"

"I don't know. I don't know you. I don't trust very many people."

"Do you trust any at all?"

"I almost trust Ducky."

"Is that Dr. Mallard?"

"Yeah. Everyone calls him that. He doesn't mind."

"Is there anyone else you trust?"

"I trusted Mary...a little. Then, she... Well, she's dead, anyway. Doesn't matter."

"No one else you trusted?"

"No."

"Not your mother?"

Tim didn't answer. Rachel could see that there was something very complicated about Tim's feelings toward his mother. She really wanted to see what it was that he was hiding. Was it abuse? Physical, sexual or verbal? No one had mentioned it as a possibility. It could have something to do with his mother working as a prostitute. Was it just the problems he'd had leaving his home and coming to Hazard? She'd have to tread carefully around his mother, Rachel could see. However, there was too much tied up in her to ignore.

"Will you at least try to answer my questions, Tim?"

"What if I don't like them?"

"You won't," she said, honestly. "I'm almost positive that I will ask you questions you don't want to answer, questions that might make you mad, confused, upset, hurt. Those are the questions that are the most important ones for you to _try_ to answer. If you really can't or if you really don't want to, I won't force you. All right?"

"We'll see."

"Yes, we will."

Rachel got out her notebook. She still preferred taking notes. It helped her organize her own thoughts.

"All right, I'd like to start with your parents' divorce."

Tim's brow furrowed in confusion.

"What? Why? That was a long time ago. Why would you ask about that now? It has nothing to do with Mary."

"But it has a lot to do with you, Tim."

"I didn't kill Mary!" Tim said, angrily. "I didn't!"

"That's not why I'm asking."

"Then, why?"

"Because _you_ are important, Tim. It's not about Mary's death. It's not about the people in Hazard. It's about _you_. You may not believe it, but you are important."

Tim was quiet for about a minute. Then, he looked at her.

"What do you want to ask?"

"Did your mother talk about the divorce to you?"

"Not really."

"What does that mean?"

"I mean that she didn't say anything _to_ me, but I heard them fight. I watched Dad walk away. I know Mom wasn't happy about it."

"And you?"

"Dad hated us. Why should I care?" His voice was calm, but Tim's hand reached up and rubbed at his neck, seemingly automatically.

"Because he was your dad. Did you understand it all at age seven?"

Tim shrugged and dropped his hand back to his lap. "Dad was probably sleeping around. I knew he was with another woman that wasn't Mom. I knew he left us and never looked back. Dad was a jerk. We were better off without him...except in money. We had almost nothing after he left."

"Why was that? Do you know?"

"Because he took it all. We never had a lot, but it was enough before. It wasn't after."

"Do you know what your mother did for a job after your parents divorced?"

Tim looked at her for a long moment. Then, he looked away...and lied.

"No."

Rachel could see that it was a lie. She wasn't sure how much Tim really knew, but she could see that he had no intention of talking about it. Well, for the moment, it didn't matter so much. She decided to move on instead of pushing.

"Is that why your mother moved you here, to Hazard?" Rachel asked. "For a job?"

"No."

She saw it in his eyes, in the tension in his posture. This was getting close to something Tim _really_ didn't want to talk about. There was nothing to do but see how far he'd let her go.

"Then, why?"

"Because my dad died."

"Why would that matter?"

"Because people think I killed him."

It was spoken very matter-of-factly, but this was getting even closer. Tim _looked_ calm, but his eyes were starting to move around. He wasn't happy about this topic, and it was getting him worked up, even if he wasn't showing it, yet.

"Why would anyone think that, Tim?" she asked, keeping her voice low and gentle, trying to ease Tim into this area he didn't want to go.

"Because they said they saw me there that night. Someone said he saw me running away from the house just before it caught fire."

"Was he right? Were you there?"

"My mom said she saw me asleep in bed!" Tim said, shifting from apparently calm to nearly hysterical in record time. "She told the police that I was in bed! She said she saw me there!"

"What about what _you_ say, Tim?" Rachel asked. "What do you say about that night?"

"My mom said I was home in bed! She said she saw me in bed!"

"And was that true?"

"Mom said I was in bed."

The same answer, over and over. This was something Tim didn't want to get into. He was stopping at this stage and refusing to go further. It might have to wait until he trusted her more. One more question, though.

"Tim, you seem to have a very complicated view of your mother. I want to ask you one of those hard questions, okay?"

"Okay."

"Did your mother ever hurt you?"

Tim jumped to his feet.

"My mother did _not_ abuse me! How dare you come in here and say that! She never hurt me! Never! Ever!"

Rachel stood up as well, but she kept her voice calm.

"Tim, I have to ask that kind of question. I know it's a hard one, but it's better to get it out of the way. The way you talk about her indicates that things weren't normal, but if you say that she didn't abuse you, then, I'll trust you. Okay?"

Tim was breathing heavily, his nostrils flaring slightly, but he was starting to calm down in reaction to her calm.

"Just so that it's completely clear, your mother never abused you physically, sexually or emotionally?"

"No," Tim said, very emphatically.

"All right. I believe you. Will you sit down again, Tim?"

Rachel sat on the chair, hoping Tim would follow suit.

After a few seconds, he did, but she could see that he was still wound up by her questions. Maybe this was the time to reciprocate and tell _Tim_ something that he might appreciate. Perhaps Gibbs wouldn't approve of the timing, but it was important for her to build up some rapport with Tim. He wasn't going to trust someone just because he was asked to. He would need evidence that he _could_ trust her.

"Tim, you have a sketchpad, don't you?"

"How did you know about that?"

"Because the agents found one in your car."

Tim sat up and looked at her. His expression was nothing short of shocked.

"They didn't burn it?"

"They probably didn't find it. It was in the trunk."

"Yeah. I left it there sometimes when I was in a hurry. I figured that they just broke into the car like they did my house. They wouldn't have left it if they had found it. You really have it? You're not just saying that?"

"Wait here, Tim. I'll get it."

Rachel got up and walked out to the living room. Kate and Ducky were sitting on the couch, talking.

"We heard the fireworks," Kate said when she noticed Rachel's entrance.

"Not bad, but I need the sketchpad. I told him about it."

Kate raised an eyebrow. "We weren't going to do that, yet."

"Circumstances dictated it. I'll take responsibility with Gibbs if it ends up not helping like I think it will."

"Okay. It's your funeral."

"I think I'll survive."

Kate handed it to her, and Rachel went back into the study. She handed the sketchpad to Tim and was interested in his eagerness to have it back. He almost hugged the sketchpad but stopped himself at the last moment. Instead, he ran his fingers lightly over the worn cover. Back and forth. Back and forth. This was something that mattered to him, more than he might even want to admit. It was _his_.

Rachel sat down.

"Why does this matter so much to you, Tim?"

"Because drawing is something that helps me feel not so wrong."

"Why?"

Tim looked up at her.

"Do you know what's in here?"

"Yes. I've seen the pictures you drew."

"All of them?"

"Mostly. When they found it, they didn't know whether or not you were a suspect."

"They thought I killed her?" Tim asked, seeming hurt.

"No. They had no opinion at all. When an investigation starts, they have to go where the evidence leads them, and this was just one of the first things they found. How they feel now, I can't say, but they had to treat it as evidence at first."

"So why is it different, now?"

"Because we're finding evidence that goes against what the sheriff says."

Tim nodded.

"Tim, why do you always draw a monster destroying a house?"

Tim shrugged. Rachel smiled.

"Was that because you don't know or because you don't want to tell me that?"

Tim shrugged again. Rachel shifted her probe a little bit.

"You fill up the entire page with drawings. Is it just to save paper?"

Tim looked at the sketchpad again and ran his hand over the cover once more.

"I've had this for years. Mom bought it for me. It was a lot of money we didn't have, and I knew she wouldn't be able to buy another one. It takes me so long to draw, and I don't want to waste any pages. I've erased an entire picture before just so that I could start over without losing the page."

Rachel waited, thinking he might say something more.

"It's so important to get it right," he said softly. "I have to draw it just right."

"What makes it right?" Rachel asked, making her voice soft, as well, trying to coax him into sharing something through the medium of his drawings that he wouldn't just talk about. "Would you show me?"

Tim glanced at her, hesitated and then, opened up the sketchpad. The first page. He turned the pad around so that it was right-side up for Rachel.

"There always has to be a house," Tim said. "And the people in the house. Two."

Rachel said nothing, hoping that he would keep up his explanation.

"The monster is made out of fire. Sometimes, it comes out of his eyes, sometimes, it doesn't, but it has to be fire. ...and then..."

Tim stopped and his hand brushed over a part of the drawing Rachel hadn't really noticed before. It was another figure. Indistinct, almost not there at all. It looked like a mistake, like Tim had messed up and erased it.

"What is this, Tim?" Rachel asked, very gently.

"It has to be there," Tim said, almost in a whisper.

"Why?"

"Because it does," Tim said.

Rachel looked at it more closely. It was behind the monster, almost hidden by it. The bulk, the dark lines, the ferocity of the monster dominated the drawing, making it easy to miss the smaller, fainter figure.

"Is that in all of them, Tim?" Rachel asked.

"It has to be there."

"Can I look?"

Tim let go of the sketchpad. Rachel looked through the drawings. Sure enough. Once she knew to look for it, that faint image was in every single drawing of the monster. No matter what variations there were in the monster, the figure was always there. Always the same. The monster changed, but that figure didn't. Its position didn't change. Always just behind the monster.

"What is it?"

Tim said nothing, and she could see that this might be pushing him too far. She shifted topics to something a little easier.

"All right. Can I ask you about this drawing you did of Mary?" Rachel asked, flipping to the first one. "It's beautiful."

"Really?" Tim asked, his expression clearing a bit. "It was really hard. I spend days trying to get it right."

"Why did you draw her that way? I'm guessing she wasn't dressed like a Greek goddess."

To her relief, Tim smiled and shook his head.

"The first time I saw her by the river...she was standing right by it and the angle made it look like she was actually standing on the water, like she'd just come up out of it. It was like she'd come from another world to Hazard. The sun hit her just right. I've never seen anyone like that before...and then, she actually liked me."

"You did a great job with it. She really does look beautiful."

"She is. Was."

Rachel found it interesting how positively Tim responded to a simple compliment. He seemed to crave that approval from others, even when it was coming from someone who didn't know anything about art. Based on what she had learned about his past, compliments were probably very rare in Tim's experience.

"Well, no matter how long it took you, I think it was worth it."

"It was."

Rachel smiled and then, she moved to her next question.

"There aren't any monsters on this page."

Tim shook his head.

"Why not?"

"There weren't any that day. That whole week. That's what made it so different. That's why I drew it. It was hard, but it felt so much better."

"But on the later pictures, there are."

Tim nodded. "One good week doesn't fix everything. They just weren't as bad. Most of the time."

She decided to probe again. "Are there any that are more important than the others?"

Again, Tim withdrew. Maybe, it was too many hard questions this time. These were things Tim had _never_ been able to talk about to anyone. Getting him to open up would take time. Maybe she should have started with Mary instead of Tim's father, but at the same time, the beginning informed the ending.

"I'd like to talk to you about this again later, Tim. Would you let me?"

"I guess so."

She looked at him, again noticing the bright intelligence in his eyes, even if his psychological and emotional health wasn't good. She decided to acknowledge the intelligence she could see.

"Tim, I'm going to be using what you've told me to look for clues in the pictures. I might have more questions about them."

"And I have to answer?"

"If you can."

"Okay."

"All right. Is there anything else you'll tell me?"

Tim shook his head.

"Okay. We'll leave it there, then. Thank you, Tim. I know these were hard questions to answer."

Tim shrugged and looked back at his sketchpad.

"I get to keep this, now? You're not taking it back?"

"No, I'm not."

Without another word, Tim flipped open to the unfinished picture, grabbed a pencil and started drawing. Rachel watched him. This wasn't a quick, dashed-off picture. She had known that, but this was the first time she'd ever seen him draw, and he was intent. He drew slowly and deliberately.

Getting things right.

He'd forgotten all about her. His whole mind was focused working on this drawing. For a while, she just watched him, seeing the intensity that should not be necessary for a drawing of a monster. In a way, she admired his ability, not for drawing necessarily, but for giving his attention to something so wholeheartedly. He made dark lines, pressing hard into the paper, making the monster ever more detailed. So far, this was not a fire monster as the others had been. There was something about the eyes of the monster. They were so large. They almost looked glassy the way he was drawing them.

It would be something she needed to ask him about later, but for now, she decided to allow Tim to have some privacy.

Besides, she wanted to bring Gibbs up to speed on what she knew and what she surmised.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

Tim sat there, drawing. Then, he stopped and looked at the picture as it was so far. He couldn't help but remember that last time with Mary. What if he had not pushed her away? Would she have lived? If he had been there, would she have been safe? Would she have been fine if he had just been there with her?

Then, he scoffed a little. No one was safe with him. Tim knew that. He had been just in the next room when his mother had died. That hadn't kept her alive. His father...

He cut off that line of thought. No going back to that in his conscious thoughts. Slowly, he turned back to the beginning of the sketchpad. One of the few things that he hadn't _needed_ that he'd received. It was the last gift she'd _ever_ given him, not long before she died.

He looked at the picture he'd drawn. He never knew how these pictures made him feel. They made the wrong feeling easier to deal with, but they didn't really make him feel better. He always had this feeling of betrayal, like he was doing something terrible in drawing them, but his mother had just not understood.

Then, he went back to the first picture of Mary that he'd drawn. He could still smile a little when he saw it. It was needlessly romantic, but she was the first person that hadn't filled him with confusion, the first person who had actually cared about him.

...and yet...

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

" _Tim, please, you need to listen to me."_

" _No!"_

 _Tim knew he shouldn't have agreed to come back here. His brain was too full of chaos._

 _Mary reached out and grabbed his arm._

" _Tim, it isn't what you think it was."_

" _I'm not listening to you! Leave me alone!"_

" _Tim, I wasn't betraying you! You don't understand."_

 _She wouldn't let him go, and Tim was shaking with his anger and confusion. She was even wearing his scarf!_

 _He pushed her away from him as hard as he could and Mary stumbled backwards. She looked at him with fear in her eyes. She had never seemed afraid of him, not once._

 _Until now._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Rachel could see that Gibbs wasn't exactly happy that she'd given Tim his sketchpad back, but he didn't say anything until they'd left Ducky's house and headed to a place where they could talk without witnesses, whether those witnesses were people from Hazard or Ducky and Tim themselves.

"Well?"

"I know you think I made a mistake, Gibbs, but I didn't. I'm building up some rapport with Tim, and that's a necessity, not a luxury. He may have a lot to tell."

"Then, why isn't he telling?"

"For a few reasons, I think. What I'm saying here is speculation at this point. One session isn't enough to be certain."

Gibbs just gestured for her to go on.

"Okay. First, he doesn't trust anyone. No one in his life has made trust something he's willing to give. Second, I think he's learned from a very young age not to think about things that are especially troubling because there's no way of solving the complications. I've seen children who were obvious eyewitnesses completely unable to talk about what they saw. It's not because they've forgotten it or even blocked it out. It's because they save themselves from something they don't understand by refusing to think about it. They only allow certain facts into their conscious memory. It's possible to get them to talk about it, but it takes time and effort on both sides. Tim never had that, and he's grown up with that mindset. Third, he's afraid of what telling what he knows will lead to next. Everything in his life has been bad. He's lost both his parents. He's destitute, completely dependent on Dr. Mallard to keep him alive at this point. He's lost the only person he'd begun to trust... _after_ she betrayed him, from his perspective."

"She didn't," Tony said. "She was protecting him."

Rachel raised an eyebrow, but she wanted to finish her explanation. So she gestured to Kate to stay quiet while she talked.

"The reality doesn't matter right now, not really. What matters is what he sees. And what he saw was another loss, coupled with another betrayal. He has no hope of things getting better. He doesn't even think about it because what's the point in thinking about something that is a complete fantasy? When I gave him his sketchpad, it was something he desperately wanted but had given up ever getting back. By giving it back and being honest about how we might use it, I'm giving _him_ trust and helping him to trust _me_."

"So what have you found so far, then?" Gibbs asked.

"Well, I know this isn't for your case, but I think he was at the house when his father died. I think he knows who started the fire, maybe even saw it happen."

"Who?"

Rachel glanced at Kate.

"I think it was his mother."

"What? Why?"

"Think about it. I think we all agree that he was likely at the house, right?"

They all nodded.

"Tim's relationship with his mother is far from simple. He doesn't seem to think about her with any degree of happiness. She couldn't help him. She couldn't save him. She brought him here because of the accusations that he'd killed his father. She died, and left him alone in this place. All that is hard enough, but there's more to it...and it's in those drawings. We just didn't see it."

"What did we miss?" Kate asked.

"A figure that is in each and every drawing of the monster."

"Around the edges?"

"No. Right in the middle, but cleverly hidden by the monster itself."

Kate pulled out her laptop where she'd saved copies of the drawings and brought one up.

"Show me."

Rachel pointed to it.

"That little smudge?" Tony asked.

"Yes. That's a person, and I asked Tim about it. He said that it had to be there. He had to get it _right_. No matter how the monster changed, that person had to be there. I asked him who it was, but he wouldn't tell me."

"Okay. If it was his mother, why wouldn't he say?"

"Because when this happened, he was seven years old. He wasn't old enough to know what to do. He resented his father because he left. He might even have hated him, but at the same time, this was his _father_. He also probably wanted him back. He wanted things to be normal. Maybe that's why he was there. Maybe he went to ask his father to come home. He went there and he saw something. His father dead? I don't know, but then, he also sees his mother there. He runs back home. The house burns down. People come to his house saying that someone saw him at the house before it burned and they think he did it. So, as a seven-year-old, what he hears is that the person who was at the house was the one who killed his father. He was there, and he knows it, but he also knows his mother was there. ...and his mother claims that _he_ was home in bed. His mother _lied_. He won't see that it's to protect him. He'll see it as another major source of confusion. Whoever was at the house killed his father. His mother was there, but she's not saying anything. No one saw her...except him. As a child, he just can't navigate through all that, especially without someone to turn to. Given time, he might have said something to teachers at school, friends, something like that, but he didn't get the chance. Instead of having someone to lean on, to _tell_ , he was taken from the place he knew to a place where everyone viewed him with suspicion because he's a disturbed little boy and he doesn't know how to hide it."

"If you're right, how long will it take for him to admit it?" Tony asked.

"I don't know. I have to tread carefully because he's going to resist any poking and prodding into that part of his life. I asked him if there was any abuse and he freaked out, although he was emphatic that his mother never hurt him. He still doesn't know how to deal with it. It pushes him into a place he doesn't want to go and, really, can't handle going anyway."

"So what about Mary?"

"I think there's more to the pictures he's drawn of her, as well. If what he draws has to be _right_ , then, he's not going to put random stuff on the page. He's going to put there what he needs to be there. And there's something going on around Mary that is distressing for him, too. It's only in the first picture that Mary is by herself. There's something or someone in all the rest of the pictures."

"But he won't talk about that, either?"

"No, but, unlike the death of his father, I think he wants to. He just doesn't know how. If we keep at it, he'll talk."

"Before or after it's too late?" Gibbs asked.

"I can't answer that. I don't know what too late is."

"I don't, either."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Stan sat at his desk, looking through the crime scene photos from Mary Fields' death. She'd been found in the river with that scarf around her neck. If it weren't for the scarf, even Sheriff Drake would have no choice but to admit there was no evidence, but as it was, he could cling to that scarf as proof positive, even though he _knew_ it was circumstantial at best.

Then, suddenly, he heard raised voices coming from Sheriff Drake's office. He looked up as the door burst open and Sheriff Drake came storming over to Stan's desk.

"Did _you_ know about this?" he demanded.

"About _what_ , Alan?" Stan asked. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Those state people were questioning _my_ son about the house fire." He didn't give Stan a chance to say anything. He turned on his son. "You see, now, why I told you that you shouldn't have got involved with Mary Fields? You see?"

"Dad, don't blow a gasket," Alan said. "I only told you because you always want to know these things. I'm not worried. They knew I was telling the truth. I didn't burn the freak's house down. The reason they were wondering was stupid. They thought I might be getting revenge for Mary, but I didn't care about her. Not enough to do anything."

Stan raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, come on, Stan," Alan said. "Don't tell me you never went after a girl just for the challenge of it."

Stan didn't answer.

"Why would they be questioning him?" Sheriff Drake demanded. "They have no right to be..."

"They have _every_ right, Alan," Stan said. "They're investigating. Clearly, they don't think he's guilty. He'd have been questioned more officially if they really thought he did it. They were probably just getting rid of the possibility."

He said that, but he knew what they were really doing. They were probing into Mary's death and dressing it up in the house fire. Stan wondered how long Gibbs would bother with the pretense. Gibbs wasn't big on hiding his investigations.

"You find me some evidence, Stan. I'm sick and tired of letting McGee walk around free."

"I can only find evidence if there's something to find, Alan," Stan said, keeping himself calm. "The fact that we're not finding anything should tell you something."

"Look, Dad, I'm going home. If you'd stop shouting, people would stop paying attention."

"Alan," Sheriff Drake said. "Alan!"

Alan didn't look back. He was utterly unconcerned. Stan would like to smack the guy upside the head, but he also could see that he wasn't worried because he hadn't done anything. He wasn't really secure enough to think that he could just get away with it. He wasn't nearly as tough as he thought he was.

Sheriff Drake whirled back to Stan, but Stan had thought of something to distract him.

"Before you go off on me again, Alan, remember that if you had bothered to investigate the house fire, the state wouldn't have had to send someone in to do it. If you're upset about it, it's your own fault. I _told_ you that we should have found out who did it, but all you care about is pinning Mary Fields' murder on Tim McGee. If the state guys are talking to your son, that's on _you_. Now, I'm looking through the crime scene photos again. I'm trying to find something. Do you want to keep trying to blame me for something I had nothing to do with or do you want me to work?"

Sheriff Drake grumbled and went back into his office.

Once he was sure that the sheriff wouldn't be coming back out again for a while, Stan took a real risk and emailed some of the digital photos to Gibbs. With the way the sheriff was acting, Stan knew that he wouldn't have a job anymore if he were found out.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Sheriff Drake was fuming. No matter how he tried, he couldn't get the evidence to fit. He was _not_ going to leave Tim McGee walking around free.

He couldn't understand Stan's attitude. He hadn't liked Tim any more than anyone else, but he was the one who had pointed out that they really had no evidence and he'd even said that he didn't think Tim was guilty! The problem was that Stan was the kind of guy people tended to listen to. He had a way about him that people trusted. That was why Sheriff Drake had been happy to hire him before. Now, he was seeing that Stan wasn't what he really wanted in this place, not right now.

Something had to be done.

But carefully.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

It was late in the night but Kate and Rachel were still staring at digital copies of the pictures Tim had drawn of Mary. They had started working as soon as they'd got back to the office, both determined to find what Tim might have to tell them.

"You know, if a normal picture is worth a thousand words, I think these pictures Tim drew must be worth at least a million," Kate said. "There is so much detail."

"If this was his only outlet for what he felt, then, it's no wonder. Have you ever thought about how complex a picture _you_ might draw would be if you weren't allowed to tell anyone the truth but you could draw it instead?"

Kate smiled a little.

"But this is different."

"I don't think it really is. I think that Tim is really drawing his subconscious mind. He's telling the truth he can't speak."

"I just wish we could find something that might tell us more than he can say."

"I do, too," Rachel said. Then, she just happened to glance down at the picture she'd printed out. "And I think I might have found it."

"What? Where?"

"On this one, it's in the lower right-hand corner. Look at it."

Kate looked at the picture she'd been studying. Then, she looked at the image Rachel was examining.

"It's not the same here."

"It isn't?"

"No...I... Wait." Kate turned the picture sideways and saw it. "It's here. Center left."

They started looking through the pictures of Mary. It wasn't in all of them, but it was in the majority, and it was never in the same place.

"Always moving. So...we've found it. Now, what is it?"

Rachel looked at it. Unlike the figure in the monster drawings, this one was clear...at least, the fact that it was there was clear. It was a large eye. Glassy, and it had hands coming out both sides. The hands were threatening claws. That was it. No feet. No face. Just an eye with claws.

"I don't know. It's never in the same place. Unlike that faint figure, which is always with the monster, controlling it, this is always moving around. I think we could take that literally. It's on all sides of Mary. But not always there."

"It's an eye. Someone watching her?"

"And a dangerous someone if those claws are indicative."

"So Tim saw this person. Did Mary?"

"Maybe Tim knows. Maybe not."

Kate looked at the eye again. "If this is right, then, Tim may know who killed Mary, or at least someone who would be a valid suspect."

"The other possibility is that, since we're looking at Tim's psyche, here, this is supposed to represent a part of him...meaning that _he_ could be the dangerous one."

"True. I don't like it, but I have to admit that you could be right."

"So...I know that Gibbs has already decided that he's innocent and I agree that it's a distinct possibility, but this is something else. You think he'd let me ask Tim about it?"

"I don't know. If it's to do with the case, he might want to be there himself, but I know that's not SOP."

"SOP?" Rachel repeated with a grin. "You've been hanging around military types too long."

"It's not just the military," Kate said. "Regardless, if Gibbs insists..."

"I'll have to say no. Tim has the right to privacy, even if we use some of the information he gives. Gibbs does not have the right to violate that. Now, if I get Tim to talk about it and he does give information germaine to the case, I'll ask him if Gibbs can come in, but that's it. I know the rules and so does he, even if he wants to ignore them. I won't allow it."

"Just so we're clear."

Rachel nodded. Then, she looked at the pictures again.

"You know, it would be easy to look at these pictures and assume that Tim's intelligence was stunted along with his psyche, but the detail is so telling. He sees a lot more than people give him credit for. I mean, look at this right here. That's Dr. Mallard, isn't it?"

Kate looked closely at the small figure in on the side.

"I think so. It does look like him, and there's a duck nearby, too. It's only on this one page."

"So Dr. Mallard was there once that Tim noticed."

Then, Kate looked at the pictures again.

"Hey...Rachel."

"What?"

"Look here, down in the bottom left corner."

Rachel looked and then her eyes widened.

It was the same faint figure that had been in the monster drawings. They looked through the other pictures of Mary and it was there every time, except for the first one. Even when the eye was missing, that faint figure was there.

"Now, I've been making an assumption that this was supposed to be his mother. Why have her there?"

Kate's brow furrowed as she stared at the picture. Then, she turned to her computer and brought up a picture of Margaret McGee.

"Look at this, Rach."

"What?"

"It's Margaret McGee."

"There's a resemblance. Not enough to speak to a real relation. It's more the hairstyle, the general build. I wonder if Tim even realizes that consciously or if it's just a subconscious comparison."

"That would help explain why he was never fully comfortable. Something reminded him of his mother and regardless of her role, we already know how complicated that was and is for him."

"But even if that's the case, why would she be in the pictures? He didn't really meet Mary until after his mother had been dead for more than a year."

"Well, I guess that's another question you can ask him."

Rachel smiled. "Yeah. I guess so. For now, we should probably let it go and get some sleep."

On cue, Kate yawned. "Yeah, you're probably right. Besides, David's going to start wondering what happened to you."

"David knows me well enough to know what keeps me out late."

Kate cleared her throat suggestively and Rachel raised an eyebrow.

"I think some of those male bad habits are starting to rub off on you."

"Whatever, dear sister. I'm going to go home and crawl into my bed."

"Good night."

They left the building, although they couldn't help but think that there was so much they could be missing.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

It was after midnight when Ducky heard movement in the front room where Tim had been sleeping.

Then, as he had before, Tim left the house. Instantly, Ducky was up and ready to follow. He didn't want to see a repeat of that night, but he also didn't want anything to happen to Tim when he seemed not to be thinking about how dangerous this town could be for him right now.

However, instead of going to the river, Tim walked in the opposite direction. Ducky followed at a respectful distance, wondering where Tim was going.

He realized when Tim walked out of Hazard's city limits and headed to a place he probably hadn't set foot in for years, if ever.

The cemetery.

 _What grave will you go to?_ Ducky wondered. There was really only one option that Ducky could think of.

At first, it didn't seem like Tim would go into the cemetery at all. He stopped at the edge and didn't move. Ducky stopped his car and waited. If Tim noticed the sound of his follower, he made no indication of it. Ducky knew part of the reason Tim was so hesitant.

Tim hated death. He hated being confronted with death. He hated knowing that people died. He didn't want to be around death.

And yet, here he was.

Finally, he walked into the cemetery and headed for a grave that had been long neglected. There were no flowers on it. It was dirty. No one came to this grave.

Ducky got out of the car and followed.

After a few moments, Tim knelt beside the grave of his mother. He didn't speak, or if he did, the words were so soft that Ducky couldn't hear him. He just knelt there without moving. What he was thinking was impossible to discern.

Ducky stood where he was near the entrance. The cemetery wasn't very large.

Then, he turned when another car pulled up. He was more than a little nervous about who this might be. The door opened and someone got out.

"Ducky, what are you doing here?"

Ducky let out a relieved exhalation.

"Deputy Burley," he said in a whisper.

"The cemetery is closed after dark."

"I know that. Timothy came. I followed."

Stan looked over to where Tim was sitting on the ground by his mother's grave. He was now leaning on it, his head in his hands.

"What's he doing?"

"I haven't the slightest idea. I don't think he even realizes I'm here. What brings _you_ here?"

Stan sighed. "I'm trying to make sure that we don't have a disastrous descent into a mindless mob. Even the most mindless will have to go to bed sometime. I figure that I've stayed up late enough...but he's taking a real risk walking around outside, right now. They've already burned his house. Someone might decide to go farther than that."

"I know that. That's why I'm here."

He saw Stan smile in the darkness.

"No matter how earnest you might be, Ducky, I doubt that you could physically hold anyone back."

"True enough."

Stan looked at Ducky and then over at Tim again.

"I know that you and I don't really see things the same way when it comes to McGee, but I don't want anything to happen to him, either. He hasn't done anything deserving what some people want to do...and what some people have already done. If they get away from me, call. Okay?"

"I will. I've already been given phone numbers for all of Agent Gibbs' team."

"Good. Gibbs will keep track of things, too. That's all to the better."

"You know him?"

"Oh, yeah. I worked for him before I came here. Five years."

"Why leave?"

"That's a long story, but Gibbs won't let injustice happen if he can help it. Neither will I. I wish that I could just..." He stopped himself abruptly. "Anyway, I'm going to hang out until you two leave. I don't want to have anything happen."

"Thank you, Deputy Burley."

Stan sighed. "You don't need to be so formal, Ducky. Who knows? By the time this is all finished, I may not have a job."

He walked away from Ducky, back to his car. As he'd said, he didn't drive away. Ducky looked back to where Tim was still sitting. He took a breath and walked over.

"Timothy?"

Tim looked up at him and then back at the grave.

"I've never been here before. Not since the funeral. I never even looked at the headstone before. Who made it?"

"I don't know. You didn't pick it out?"

"I don't know," Tim said. "I don't remember. I do know that I never came here."

"I didn't think you had. Why now?"

Tim shrugged and stood up.

"You didn't need to come."

"Yes, I did."

"Why?"

"Because you need someone to care about you, and coming out here isn't safe. Timothy, why won't you just leave Hazard?"

"Because there's nowhere else to go."

"Yes, there is. There is a whole world outside of this town. I would help you."

Tim shook his head.

"I can stay somewhere else if you're tired of having me at your house, Ducky. I don't blame you. Lots of people in and out. You're worried about someone coming after me. You don't really have any stock in this game."

"And where would you stay?" Ducky asked.

"At my house. Where else?"

"In that case, absolutely not. That house is liable to collapse and it is certainly not fit for you to live in. It was barely fit _before_ the fire."

"I've lived in that house for most of my life. It's always been fine."

"It's _never_ been fine. Tolerable, perhaps. Not even you think it's been fine."

Tim shrugged. "I survived it, Ducky."

"There's more to life than just surviving."

"Not for me, there isn't." He looked back at the grave and then at Ducky again. "What you don't seem to get, Ducky, is that this is all my life is. It's all it's ever been and it's all that it will ever be. Some people just don't get the good stuff. Some people have to live like this. There's no way out of it. There's no escape."

"That is not true. There is so much more that you could have in your life if you would allow someone to help you."

Tim started to walk away, but Ducky grabbed his arm.

Suddenly, Tim shifted from the cynical, hopeless man to the disturbed, helpless man.

"Let me out of here. I don't want to be here anymore."

Tim pulled away from Ducky's hand and hurried out of the cemetery. When he was back to the street, he stopped and breathed heavily.

"Timothy, what was that about?"

"There's nothing but death in there," Tim whispered. "Death. It's so heavy. So oppressive. It's everywhere in there. How can it not suffocate you?"

"Death is a natural part of life."

"Not my life."

Tim started to walk away again, but Ducky stopped him.

"Timothy, don't walk back. Let me give you a ride."

He thought Tim would refuse, but he nodded.

"Good. Let's go and allow Deputy Burley the chance to go home."

Tim stopped in surprise and looked back to where Stan's car sat.

"Why is _he_ here?"

"Because he doesn't want anything to happen to you."

"Yeah, right. He hates me, just like everyone else."

"That's not true. While I wouldn't claim that he likes you, he does not hate you, and he believes in justice which would not be served if someone were to attack you."

Tim got in the car and said nothing.

They drove back to Ducky's home in silence. Then, Tim walked back into the house and sat down on the couch. He pulled out the sketchpad and started drawing again.

Ducky watched him for a few minutes. Then, he walked over and sat down beside Tim.

"Timothy, please, tell me something."

Tim didn't look up.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Something that will let me understand you. I _am_ trying, but I don't think I'm succeeding."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. Was there ever a time when you were happy?"

Tim stopped drawing, midstroke. He didn't look up.

"Before my dad left. I think I was happy, then. It was a long time ago. Maybe, I don't remember it right, but I think I was."

Ducky's heart twisted. That would have been about 20 years ago. To have lived so long in misery was terrible. No wonder surviving was all Tim could think of.

"I'm sorry, Timothy."

Tim still didn't look up. He just resumed drawing. The picture was becoming more and more detailed. Ducky wished he had the key to understanding what Tim expressed in his drawings. For a moment, he wondered how this spark of creativity would have manifested itself had Tim been able to live a normal life. Would he still draw or would it come in some other form?

Ducky left Tim on the couch and checked to make sure all the doors were locked before he went to bed. Normally, he didn't worry about that much. One of the nice things about Hazard was that it was actually generally quite safe. The worst crimes were usually TP-ing people's homes or cars around homecoming or Halloween. What had happened in the last week was extremely uncommon.

Uncommon happenings had a way of upsetting the apple cart, and Ducky had no idea how the apples would fall.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

"Pack a bag," Gibbs said abruptly as he strode into the office.

"What?" Kate asked. "Where are we going?"

"To Hazard. I don't trust that town to wait for us to figure things out. We're going to be closer."

"For how long?" Tony asked.

Gibbs just raised an eyebrow.

"You have an hour."

Kate and Tony hurried out. Then, Gibbs looked at Rachel.

She smiled a little.

"I know you'd like to order me around, too, Gibbs, but that's not the way it works. I work for the state, not for you. I'll come to talk to Tim because I know that's necessary and I want to help him, but I can't camp out in Hazard for an indeterminate length of time. I do have other clients."

"Then, what do you suggest?" Gibbs asked, flatly.

"That I take my own car so that I can come with you but leave if I need to. I don't carry a gun, anyway. That's not part of my skill set."

"Maybe you should work on that."

Rachel grinned. "If I keep getting pulled into your messes, maybe, I should. Regardless, I won't be an expert shot, or even competent in the next few days. You wouldn't _want_ me to be using a gun right now."

That was far too true. Gibbs knew it, and Rachel knew he knew it.

"So, if you want me to go with you today, I'll get my car and I'll follow you all out there. I can maybe swing one night if you want, but I can't just be there in Hazard."

Rachel could see that Gibbs didn't want to capitulate. He didn't like having to give in to anyone, not even when it was warranted. It spoiled his image, she supposed, but she really couldn't promise to give him all that time.

Instead of making him answer, she just smiled.

"I'll get my stuff and head over to Dr. Mallard's place. Do you want me to try to ask him about the figure in his drawings of Mary?"

Gibbs grumbled a little and then recognized that he couldn't win this one.

"Yes."

"Okay. Then, I will. Would you like me to wait until you all leave or can I go on my own?"

Now, Gibbs rolled his eyes at her needless request for permission to go, and Rachel chuckled.

"I'll see you all there."

Rachel gathered up her things and headed out. She didn't tell Gibbs, but she actually did plan on staying with them tonight. She had no other sessions today and David already knew not to expect her. However, she also knew that there could be a crisis requiring her attention and it was better not to promise what she might not be able to give.

As she drove back to Hazard, she thought about what she had learned about Tim so far, and what would be the best approach to getting his help and cooperation. His mind was such a tangled web that she wasn't surprised how much he seemed to revert to childhood when he got upset. His speech became simpler as he tried to express emotions he didn't fully understand. It wasn't a separate personality. It was a defense mechanism so firmly rooted that it was automatic. He didn't want to think about it; so he didn't. He tried to avoid it at all costs, putting up wall after wall, until he didn't even know _how_ to deal with it. If only she could just focus on that instead of the case as well. Tim had needed this help for most of his life and never got it.

She'd just have to find that balance between the present and the past.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Stan walked along the bank of the river. He could understand why someone like Tim might like this place. It was quiet, secluded. It was peaceful. When so much of his life seemed to be chaotic and disturbing, something like this might be a refuge.

Ostensibly, right now, Stan was checking the crime scene again, looking for clues. Sheriff Drake had done most of it on his own, as he did for the majority of the crimes committed in his jurisdiction. Still, it was only an excuse.

Really, he just wanted some time to think. Tim was the guy no one liked, no one trusted, and most people feared a little bit. He had never fit in from what Stan had been told. But everyone agreed that Tim almost never went where he was not wanted (which was pretty much everywhere). He didn't try to insinuate himself anywhere. He did what was necessary and no more. You compare his quiet and yet strange and disturbing life to Alan Drake, Jr. Alan was annoying, overbearing and far too full of himself. He had long needed to be taken down a peg or twelve. He thought everyone loved him, but in reality, he was only tolerated. And yet, for whatever reason, Alan was more accepted. Now, part of that was certainly because of his father. Maybe another reason was that he was a local where Tim was a stranger. A stranger after 20 years.

It was easier to accept the way things had always been, but Stan had seen things since Mary Fields' death that had made him question.

Tim wasn't guilty of Mary's murder. Stan was sure of that. Having Sheriff Drake insist that he find evidence to the contrary was hard to accept without getting angry because anyone who had been really watching Tim during that interrogation would have seen the same thing Stan had. Stan had always counted himself as one who was good at reading people, and Tim had been devastated when he found out that Mary was dead. He had been as close to tears as Stan had ever seen him.

"Until the other night," he said aloud.

He'd been patrolling the streets late at night and would keep at it until he was sure that cooler and saner heads had prevailed. That patrol had now brought him into view of Tim McGee twice. Last night at the cemetery, he had seen Tim, but almost as important, he had seen Ducky's concern and care for him. It wasn't just pity. If Ducky thought Tim was guilty, he wouldn't shield him from justice. He knew Ducky to be wise and experienced which made him trust Ducky's perceptions more than he might with other people. However, even before that, he had seen Tim at the river. Ducky had been there again, but it was Tim himself who had caught Stan's attention.

Tim had always seemed emotionally barren. He showed almost nothing and spoke very little, keeping everything to himself. Nothing seemed to penetrate that outer shell. One of the things that people found so disturbing about Tim was how little he ever showed. It was like looking at a statue. Stan had sometimes wondered if Tim had any ability to feel at all. That apparent lack of emotion made one feel that Tim might be capable of anything. But then, at the river, Stan had watched him throwing rocks into the river, almost as if he was trying to punish the water. Then, when Ducky had pulled him up after he'd fallen, Tim had started crying. Those had been the tears of someone whose whole being was torn to pieces. As dramatic as the description was, Stan didn't know how else he could describe it.

Basically, Stan had found that it was now impossible to dislike Tim McGee. Oh, he didn't like him, necessarily, but he couldn't _dis_ like him. He couldn't because he now saw Tim as a human being who had struggles and pains that no one else knew about. Keeping all that to himself must be hard, and he did it without comment or expectation of change.

He walked to the bridge where they'd found Mary's body. She'd been wedged by one of the bridge supports, hidden by the river grass. It always amazed Stan how a river like this could hide things that should be easily visible. The river wasn't especially deep at this time of year, and it didn't have a swift current. As far as rivers went, this was a pretty safe one. And yet, things just seemed to disappear beneath the surface.

Sheriff Drake had checked this area himself. He always took the lead on investigations. There weren't many in this area, but the few that happened, he was in charge of. No one else. So he had been the one to find Mary's body.

 _And he was the one leading the posse to get Tim even before we'd found her._

Stan shook his head. He hated that this man he'd respected for his devotion to his job was now squandering all of that just for this pointless vendetta against the town crazy. He'd never liked Sheriff Drake much as a person. His personality was too abrasive, but Stan had never felt any reason not to respect him as the sheriff.

"Until now," he said ruefully.

"Talking to yourself, Stan?"

Stan looked up and saw Gibbs, Tony and a woman he didn't recognize coming down to join him on the bank.

"Hey, Gibbs. Back again?"

"Any place that we could stay without people being suspicious of our reasons?"

"There's only one inn around here and I wouldn't recommend it. Once they knew your reason for being here..."

"Right."

"So...who's with you?" Stan asked, making eye contact with the woman to show that he wasn't trying to be rude.

She smiled and put out her hand.

"Agent Kate Todd."

"Gibbs didn't say anything about you. How'd you join up?"

Kate's eyes darkened for just a moment and then the smile returned.

"Transfer from DC. I'm trained as a profiler."

"Great. Did you all get the photos I sent over?"

"We got them," Tony said. "Not pretty."

"Murders never are," Stan said. "As the profiler, do you see any method to the madness, Agent Todd?"

"Kate," Kate said. "It's hard to get a sense of it, especially when we don't have any idea of how she ended up in the river. If she was pushed into the water or if her body just fell into it. Since she apparently had the scarf already, the killer may not have been planning to kill her, but I don't think there's any sign that he changed his mind once he started, although it's possible that Dr. Mallard has seen something more than I have."

"He said that the lack of defensive wounds indicates someone she knew or else someone who was so much stronger that she couldn't fight back."

"But even if he was strong enough to pin her, she'd still fight," Tony said. "We'd see something of that on her body."

"Depends on how quickly she died," Stan said.

"Lots of bruising on her neck. He was trying to kill. It definitely wasn't an accident, whether it was planned in advance or not," Kate said.

Stan looked over at Gibbs.

"So are you giving up on pretending this is about a house fire, Gibbs?" he asked.

"If we're asked directly, yes," Gibbs said.

He crouched down on the bank.

"Any sign of where she went into the water?"

"No. Too many people searching for her body. No one pointed out any place that they noticed and we told them to."

"What's the exact timeline?" Kate asked.

"Well, so far as we can tell, Mary was killed late in the evening. It's hard to pinpoint anything more exact than that. She often came here around sunset. Tim McGee told us that she liked watching the sun go down. Her father called around ten p.m., saying that she hadn't come home. The sheriff sent me and a few others to start looking around town, see if anyone had seen her earlier that day. ...and the next morning, he got some people to go with him to arrest Tim while I'd started looking in the river. Honestly, I don't know what he was thinking doing that. Totally unprofessional. Anyway, he dragged Tim to the station and started questioning him about where Mary was, what he'd done to her. The same questions over and over again. One of the other officers told me that Alan had come really close to hitting Tim, he was so upset."

"What about Tim himself?" Kate asked.

"Tim was quiet like he always was. He was probably scared, but he doesn't show much. When I got back to check in, Alan was still at it, and I forced him to take a break. He did and joined the search parties. They found her that day, in the evening. He went at it again, this time, with the scarf they'd found, pushing it in Tim's face, demanding that he admit that he'd killed Mary. Everyone could see that Tim was shocked by the accusation. Everyone but Alan. Tim spent another day in jail until Ducky gave his report. I don't know who let it leak that we had no reason to hold Tim any longer, but someone did because they burned his house that night. A neighbor finally called the fire station and they made sure the fire didn't spread. Tim was released the next afternoon. Then, apparently, Ducky took Tim in and got you guys involved. Thank goodness."

"Well, we don't have much to show for it yet," Tony said.

"I don't even care. The more people here with their heads on straight, the better. Actually, do you guys want to crash at my place? You'd be mostly on the floor. I only have two bedrooms, and one of them is mine. Sorry, but I'm not giving that up."

Tony laughed. "I can believe that."

"You want to set up shop there, Boss?" Stan asked.

"Not your boss, anymore, Stan."

Stan chuckled. "Sorry. Force of habit. Alan wouldn't appreciate it. He's suspicious enough of me as it is."

"Having us at your place won't help, you know," Kate said.

"I know, but I'm willing to risk that. You need the space, it's yours. ...temporarily."

"All those qualifications, Stan. You'd think you didn't want us to stay," Tony said.

"I don't," Stan said and grinned.

"Good to know. Your place unlocked?"

"Yep. I have to be at work, and I'm patrolling the streets until midnight."

"There that much crime in this town?" Tony asked.

"No," Stan said seriously. "I'm not paid for that patrol. I'm trying to keep people from turning off their brains. So far, no one has tried anything since the house fire, but I can't depend on that. Actually, I _won't_ depend on that. If one terrible thing can happen, so can another. We've had two, and bad things always happen in threes."


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

Rachel walked up to the front door and was ready to knock when it opened. Ducky was there and he put his finger to his lips and then stepped outside onto the porch.

"I'm sorry that I'm not inviting you in, Dr. Cranston, but Timothy had another bad night, and he's still sleeping. It was probably near dawn before he fell asleep, and he needs the rest."

"Oh, that's all right, Dr. Mallard. Actually, I was hoping to talk to you alone, anyway."

"Oh? What about?" he gestured and she followed him around the house to a small covered patio. He gestured for her to sit down on one of the chairs.

"About Tim. You say he had _another_ bad night? What happened? Both times, if you don't mind telling me."

"I suppose I don't, although I can't tell you what he was thinking, only what I saw."

"I understand. I'm not asking for more than that. I have theories about him, but I don't _know_ him, and I'm not sure I have the time to learn what I need to know."

"I may not be the best source, I'm afraid. Timothy tells me very little."

"Very little is still more than he says to pretty much everyone else."

"I suppose so." Ducky settled back on a chair. "I've often wondered what he spoke to Mary about. I can't imagine that all their time was spent just talking about how they'd spend their time if they were free to do what they wanted. If she genuinely enjoyed his company, and I think she did, then, it must have been about more than the dreariness of their lives. Mutual misery can only go for so long."

Rachel nodded silently and let Ducky talk. Luckily, unlike Tim, Ducky was happy to talk about things at length. It was just the way he was.

"Anyway, the first night he stayed with me, I heard him leave the house very late. I was worried about him what with poor Mary being killed and then his house being burned. Timothy has had very little to be happy about, I think, but Mary had brought him some happiness. To have lost that... Well, he went to the river which has always been a place of refuge for him, but it didn't seem that way this time. When I arrived Timothy was just walking away from it. I think I startled him and he ran back toward the river. He tripped and fell and I was worried that he'd been hurt. So I helped him up and then, he started to cry. I can't explain to you why that was such a shock, but Timothy has never seemed to have the _ability_ to cry. I know that's a silly statement. When his mother died, I saw him sit on a couch after discovering her body and do nothing. Now, I know that it was numbness, shock at the sudden loss, not a lack of feeling, but still, he has never cried in my memory."

Suddenly, Ducky paused and smiled.

"What is it, Dr. Mallard?"

"I am getting long-winded, aren't I."

"Maybe, but I find it all interesting; so be as long as you want."

"Very well. You asked for it."

"I did."

"He cried for a couple of minutes and he didn't really speak much. There were words, but I couldn't understand him. The only words I could really hear were something about putting out a fire. Does that mean anything to you?"

"Actually, it does," Rachel said. "I'm just not sure _what_ it means, yet."

"You're a step ahead of me, then."

"What happened after that?"

"Nothing. I took him home, got him something dry to wear and he went to sleep."

"Did you ever talk to him about it?"

"I've tried, but I haven't succeeded. I was afraid it might be suicide, but I don't think it is. As bad as Timothy's life has been, I think he fears death too much to want to die."

"You think so?"

"Yes, I do. Timothy is terrified of death. He didn't want to come into the morgue when I first hired him to help me with my computers. He did so only with great reluctance. Until last night, he'd never been to the cemetery, not even for his mother's burial."

"He went last night?"

"Yes. I followed him again, afraid that the wrong person might see him. He went to his mother's grave and didn't say or do anything. He just sat there and stared at the grave for a while. That was all. Then, when I delayed his leaving the cemetery, he became frightened. I told him that death is a natural part of life, but he said that it wasn't for him."

"Wasn't natural," Rachel said. "Interesting. Anything else?"

"No...although he started drawing again when I brought him back here. I don't know how late he stayed up to draw, but it must have been a long time."

"Was he starting a new drawing?"

"No. It was completing one he'd already begun."

Rachel nodded. That would be something else to ask Tim about.

"Now, Dr. Cranston, I'd like to ask _you_ a question."

"Turn about is fair play, Dr. Mallard. Ask away."

"I have some training in psychology, but I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist. While I understand that you would normally wait to venture an opinion until you'd had more time to evaluate, I would like to ask you if you think it would be possible for Timothy to have a normal life after so many years of misery."

Rachel considered.

"Normal? Probably not completely. Twenty years of chaos, particularly when they occurred during the formative periods, aren't really conducive to a normal life. However, I think there's potential and with time and therapy, Tim could probably be happy. How far he goes depends entirely on how much help he has."

"And how long will _your_ help last?"

"As long as it can. And before you ask, no, it's not about money, but I don't know if Tim will be willing to continue when there's no case necessitating it. The kind of help I can offer doesn't allow him to hide from the pain. It requires that he face it and deal with it. That's not something he's ever done or knows how to do. It may end up being something he can't accept. And in the end, it has to be up to him."

"I know. I'm of the same opinion. Timothy _wants_ to be helped. It's just that he doesn't think he can be, and he doesn't trust anyone to have good intentions. I'm not sure if that feeling predates his coming here or if it was learned in Hazard."

"Either way, it's something that's been ingrained, hasn't it."

"In my experience with him, yes."

Rachel nodded. That tracked. It was nice to have some feedback, even if it was through a person who had only known him for a short time. It wasn't going to be easy to get Tim to talk, but through the medium of Mary, it might be enough to get him to open up a little bit.

"As the only person who has had any kind of substantive communication with him, I'd like to ask your opinion."

"About what?"

Rachel looked back toward the house and lowered her voice just a bit. She didn't want to risk Tim hearing about this unless Ducky thought it was a good idea.

"In the course of the investigation so far, Agent Gibbs has discovered why Mary was with the sheriff's son that night."

"And?"

"And it was because he'd threatened to make life more difficult for Tim if she refused him. Apparently, he had said that he'd get his dad to go after Tim. As you've said, Sheriff Drake has an irrational hatred of Tim. Mary was trying to protect him."

"Oh, dear. The poor girl. What's your question?"

"Do you think it would be better or worse if Tim knew?"

"At this point? Definitely worse. I can't even imagine how Timothy would feel knowing that she was doing that for him. He was angry at her and wouldn't let her talk to him. He told me that he ran from her after yelling at her and pushing her away. I don't think he could tolerate that right now."

"Understood. It's not vital that he know, but I'll be sure to avoid it for now."

Ducky sighed with relief. "Thank you."

"How much longer do you think he'll sleep?"

"I would guess that he won't sleep for much longer. He isn't a deep sleeper and it's getting close to noon, now. But while we wait, would you like some tea?"

Rachel smiled. "I'd love some."

"Excellent. You're the first to accept it."

"The others are more coffee drinkers."

"Alas, I don't think I'll ever understand this obsession people have with coffee. Nevertheless, if you'll wait here, I'll bring you something much more appropriate."

"Thank you, Dr. Mallard."

"You may call me Ducky if you'd like."

"I get where the word play comes from, but how did it come that so many people call you that?"

"It goes back a long way into the past. It just caught on. I do have friends and colleagues who simply call me Don, but Ducky I am and probably will be until the day I die."

"Do you have any preference?"

Ducky smiled.

"None."

"Well, then, Ducky, you can call me Rachel. I've never had any clever nicknames. I'm the oldest in the family and was always too serious for that."

"Now, I can't believe that."

Rachel grinned. "Well, in public, anyway."

"Ah. I see. Well, wait here and I'll bring out the tea."

"Thank you."

"My pleasure, Rachel."

Rachel watched him go inside the house and she couldn't help but think that Tim was very fortunate in having Ducky as his ally. If things ever went really wrong for her, she'd hope for someone as firm in his convictions as Ducky was.

Tim might not appreciate it, but he was lucky.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony looked around as they walked into Stan's place. It was neat and clean. And small. There was a TV and a computer, but nothing was fancy. A few pictures on the walls that could be family, some artwork.

"He doesn't live large, does he," Tony said.

"Never has," Gibbs said. "Doesn't want people to get the wrong idea."

"What's the wrong idea?" Kate asked.

"That his family money is what gets him places."

"He's rich?"

"His family is."

"You definitely can't tell from this place. It's not a dump, but it sure isn't fancy," Kate said. "I guess that's the idea."

"Yep."

"So who gets the bedroom, Boss?" Tony asked.

"Kate," Gibbs said, without looking up.

Kate grinned at Tony, and he put on a fake pout. The bedroom was small, but it had a door that locked which made it infinitely better than the main room. She dropped her bag in the room and then got to work setting up their base. A couple of laptops, the copies of Tim's sketches, the files. Most of it was digital, but it was always a good idea to have hard copy, too. You never knew when you'd need it.

"Okay. So where are we at?" Kate asked. "We've ruled out the sheriff's son, although he's a grade-A jerk. I only _wish_ we could arrest him. Her father doesn't seem to have the physical ability to kill her...and no reason to want to. We're still assuming that Tim is being honest and isn't the killer. No one else in town seems to have any connection with her. What if it was a random person passing through? The river is on the outskirts of town. No one actually saw it happen. She didn't get into any trouble in college that Abby could find. Really, we've eliminated the likeliest suspects."

"That just means that it's not someone obvious," Gibbs said.

Kate hesitated and then asked the question none of them had verbally addressed.

"What if we're all wrong and Tim really is the killer?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at her.

"Look, I agree that it's not likely to be him, but you just said that we have to find someone not likely. He has a motive: anger because of what he saw, and we all know that he's emotionally disturbed. He had the means and opportunity. What if he just snapped? He seems to have a hard time controlling his anger. It goes from nothing to everything in a second."

"But he's never hurt anyone," Tony said. "You know that we would have been told if he had any violent tendencies. Or if there was even a _hint_ of violent tendencies."

"True enough, but we're running out of possibilities, here."

"No, we're not," Tony said. "We may not know who to focus on, but there's no end to the possibilities."

Kate smiled a little. "Yeah, Tony, but there's a difference between unlikely and impossible."

"No one in town is impossible. For all we know, one of the guys in town was jealous because she turned him down. People have killed for less."

"Okay. So how are we going to eliminate everyone in town when they'll all be suspicious of us simply because we're not accepting the rhetoric?"

"We can ask Stan. He'll be able to tell us what other ideas there might be if people were willing to ask about them."

Kate nodded and got to work. It wasn't that she really _wanted_ to think Tim could be guilty. It was more that she wanted to address the possibility before it was thrust upon them by others.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

" _How are things going, Tim?"_

 _Tim shrugged. "They're fine."_

 _Mary leaned forward earnestly. "Tim, you can ask for help if you need it."_

 _Tim looked at her. "I don't."_

 _Mary sighed and scooted over close to him. Gently, she put her arm around his shoulders. Tim stiffened._

" _Tim, you do need it."_

" _What kind of help are you thinking I need?"_

 _Now, she smiled, although her response was still serious._

" _Can you think of any kind of help you_ don't _need?"_

 _Tim thought about it for a moment and then he grinned._

" _Fashion. Even if you had good advice, there's no way I could afford it."_

 _Mary laughed, but there was less humor in her laughter. They both were forcing it a little bit._

" _I wish you would trust me, Tim. I can tell that there are things you're hiding."_

 _Tim pulled back from her._

 _Suddenly, it felt hot._

 _Mary vanished and he was staring at a house._

 _Fires burst out of the windows, and he could hear screaming._

Tim sat up, breathing heavily as he looked around for the monster. Then, he heard pleasant voices outside. Ducky and...

He got up and crept to the back door.

He saw Rachel and Ducky sitting together, chatting over a cup of tea as if they were old friends. It was strange to Tim how easy it was for Ducky to converse with people. He could make friends anywhere. He pulled back and walked over to where he'd stored the clothes that the state people had brought him.

He didn't have to wear the same things as he'd been wearing yesterday. He could pull the tags off and wear new clothes again. He still felt as though this were a sign of luxury and wealth that he shouldn't get used to. However, he wasn't going to give them up.

He looked at the shirts. Most of them had some kind of logo on them, but Tim didn't really care about that. All he cared about was that they were new. So he grabbed one at random, grabbed some other clothes and went into the bathroom. After he was dressed, he looked at himself in the mirror again, and he still was amazed at how different it made him look. New clothes.

 _I look like a normal person,_ he thought to himself.

Except for the hair. It was too long and shaggy to look normal. If he really thought about it, it wasn't what he would choose for himself, but he didn't think about it because that did him no good. He had no money to spend on a hair cut. He'd shaved it all off once, thinking it might be an easy way to deal with it, but he didn't like that, either. It had made him look like a hoodlum, not that anyone thought any differently, anyway, but Tim didn't like it.

He hesitated before opening the door of the bathroom. He knew why Rachel was back. He didn't like the questions she asked. They were dangerous questions. He wasn't quite sure why he felt that way, but he knew that he didn't like thinking about them. Still, she was also asking about Mary.

Tim couldn't figure out why it was so hard to say anything to her about Mary, about the things he'd thought of himself, what he knew. But every time he tried to convince himself to talk, his throat closed up and his mind jammed. It was like he became a tongue-tied child again. The only good thing was that he didn't feel like Rachel was treating him like a child, even when he acted like one.

He looked at himself in the mirror again. Then, he shook his head and turned away. Time to face it again.


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Rachel looked up as the door opened.

"Hello, Tim," she said. "How would you feel about talking with me some more?"

Tim shrugged. "I don't mind."

She smiled and looked back at Ducky.

"Don't mind me. I'll clean up."

"Thank you."

Rachel stood up and walked into the house.

"Is the study all right with you?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Would you mind bringing your sketchpad?"

Tim hesitated and then nodded.

"Okay."

They went into the study and Rachel watched as Tim sat down stiffly on the chair, his sketchpad held tightly in his hands.

"All right, Tim. I have two things I want to ask you about your sketches."

"What?" Tim asked warily.

"First, Kate and I looked through them after I talked to you yesterday, and we found something I'd like to ask you about. May I?" She held her hand out.

Tim didn't want to let her hold it. She could see it, but he nodded and held it out. She took it and quickly flipped to one of the drawings of Mary. She didn't want to give Tim any reason to distrust her.

"We found this image in a lot of your drawings of Mary," she said, pointing to the large eye. "Not in every one. It's a person, isn't it. A real person."

Tim licked his lips nervously. He didn't want to give her a direct answer. The idea of saying anything scared him. That was the most important thing to get around, Rachel knew. Tim's fear of confiding in anyone. If she was right about his mother, then, Tim would have lived his whole life keeping a secret that he didn't know how to deal with. If she could get him to share one thing, that would naturally lead to sharing other things, although none of it would be easy. It was just a matter of figuring out how best to get inside his head.

"Tim, this could help us figure out who killed Mary. You cared about her, didn't you?"

Tim nodded.

"It's important to know why she died and who killed her," Rachel said. Then, knowing she was taking a real risk of pushing Tim into a place he couldn't tolerate, she continued. "When someone commits murder, they have to pay the price for what they did. A life has been taken. Even if this person isn't who killed her, he may have seen something."

Tim was silent. Rachel decided to try a different tack. She didn't want to mention the reality of why Mary had been with Alan. If Ducky was right and Tim would be too deeply affected by the knowledge, then, that would stop her questions right then and there. Tim would be too upset even to listen to her.

She flipped through to the last page, the one Tim had been working on. The monster was almost done.

"Tim, this looks a lot like the monster I asked you about. Is it?"

Tim nodded.

Good. An answer. Maybe some simple yes or no questions would help ease Tim into it.

"Is it a real person?"

Tim hesitated and then nodded.

"Someone you know?"

Another nod.

"Is there a reason why the eyes are so big?"

Another nod.

"Will you tell me?"

A very long hesitation. Then, Tim took a deep breath and nodded.

"He always had a camera," he said softly.

"Why?"

"He would take pictures of her."

"Of Mary?"

Tim nodded.

"It wasn't you taking the pictures?"

"No."

"Are you sure the person wasn't taking pictures of you?"

He nodded his head.

"How do you know?"

"Because I saw the pictures he took."

"You did? How?"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Stan was doing his usual patrol around the town. He took it very seriously. He slowed to a stop at the end of a block near the outskirts of Hazard. There was an old shed there. He didn't know who owned it. Suddenly, the door opened.

He leaned forward in surprise at who he saw.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

 _Tim walked down the sidewalk to the old shed. After weeks of not thinking about it, he had remembered it and he wanted to look inside._

 _What was the old shed? Whose was it? Why did he care?_

 _The last part, he could answer. He was just curious._

 _However, he knew he had to be cautious because the sheriff would use any excuse to come down on him._

 _He crept up to the door of the shed. It was actually locked, but it was just a regular old padlock. Well, Tim could get around that. He had suspected that might be the case and quickly popped open the lock. He slipped inside._

 _At first, he didn't realize what he was seeing._

 _Then, he did._

 _Photographs._

 _Hundreds of photographs._

 _Mostly of Mary._

 _Someone was taking pictures of Mary._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"I didn't know he wanted to kill her."

"Who, Tim? Who was it?"

Tim took back the sketchpad and stared at the drawing he'd made.

"I didn't know that's what I was going to find there."

Rachel could see that Tim was disconnecting, but she also knew that Gibbs would really want to know this, and to know it right now.

"Tim, I'm going to call Agent Gibbs and tell him about the shed."

He looked up at her and his expression was so strange that Rachel paused.

"What is it, Tim?"

He looked at the drawing and then at her again. He stood up and started pacing.

"Tim, what's wrong?" Rachel asked.

"Is it wrong to... not to tell?"

There it was. He'd pulled back to simplistic expressions again. That told her Tim was touching on one of those things that he found too troubling to address directly. Maybe this was a chance to get him to speak about it, even in a limited form.

"It can be. Usually, even if it's hard, telling the truth is better than hiding it."

"Better for whom?"

"Everyone, even the ones it seems to hurt. It's better to tell the truth than to lie, especially about a crime."

"But...what if..." He seemed really distressed, but at the same time, he was close to saying something.

"Tim, think about it. You're a smart guy. I've seen your grades. I've seen what you can do. You're too smart for this. I can see that it's something you're afraid of, but you don't have to be. I'm here to help you, but I'm also here to help solve a murder. I think that I could do both if you'd trust me."

"I don't."

"I know, but you can. Tim, you need to take a risk. A risk you've never taken, and you need to trust me with something. If you don't, Tim, you're going to be trapped in this forever, and you shouldn't be. You don't _have_ to be."

"That's what life is," Tim said.

"No, it's not. It really isn't. Life is more than being miserable."

"Maybe for some people, not for me. There's no way out of where I am. ...but you can see the shed."

"Tim, who was at the shed?"

"I just...I can't tell you!" Tim dropped the sketchpad and ran out of the study.

Rachel sighed. She had known that might have been too much. It was. She hated that she had pushed him too fast. All that was left was seeing if he could calm down and come back.

In the meantime, though...

She pulled out her phone.

"Gibbs, Tim told me something you should know."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim burst out of the house into the backyard, hitting his forehead with his fists. Irritated and angry.

 _Why can't I say it? Why? Why? Why?_

He berated himself for not being able to speak when it came right down to it. It was like something took over and held him back. When she told him he needed to tell the truth, it was like a big portcullis slammed down between him and the rest of the world.

A hand on his shoulder startled him and he whirled around, ready to defend himself.

"Timothy, whatever is the matter?"

Ducky. Someone who had taken it upon himself to help Tim without any sign of expecting anything back. All the pieces of his life that he had arranged in a way that he could tolerate them were starting to jumble up in his head and he just couldn't tolerate them anymore.

Something had to happen. He had to do _something_. There was only one thing he could think of to do that would be better than what he was doing now.

He pulled away from Ducky and started run.

To the shed.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Sheriff Drake took a deep breath as he sat in his car. This was going further than he'd planned, but it might be enough.

Then, he'd finally be rid of Tim McGee, a thorn in his side for too many years. He was always in the way, always interfering, always making things harder than they needed to be. Everything about him infuriated Sheriff Drake. Now, he had the chance to fix that problem. It was just a matter of getting him out of Ducky's house. Too many people held Ducky in high esteem for them to be willing to punish the old M.E. for being a softy. Their respect for Ducky outweighed their dislike and fear of Tim.

He heard something behind him. He turned.

There he was.

Tim McGee.

But where was he going?

Then, his eyes widened as he realized Tim's destination.

The shed.

No way. Not now.

This could still work. It was risky, but it could still work. He started his car up and turned around.

Back to the shed.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

" _I don't know where it is, exactly, Gibbs, but according to Tim, there are pictures of Mary. Someone was watching her."_

Gibbs gestured to Tony and Kate.

"Who?"

" _He couldn't say."_

"Couldn't?"

" _Psychologically, yes. It's something he cannot do. Not yet. I pushed too hard and he ran out of the room. I want to let him calm down before I try again. I think I'm getting closer to..."_

Then, Gibbs heard some commotion on the other end of the line.

" _What do you mean, Ducky? Gibbs, Tim's run off."_

"Where?"

" _I don't know. Ducky said that he was really upset. Maybe he's gone to that shed he told me about. Ducky, do you know where it is?"_

Gibbs couldn't understand whatever Ducky said.

" _Okay. Gibbs, where are you? We'll come to you and Ducky will tell us where to go."_

"We're at Stan Burley's house. It's on the west side. Elm Street."

" _Ducky knows where it is. We'll be there in just a few minutes."_

Gibbs hung up.

"What's going on, Boss?" Tony asked.

"Tim said that he saw someone watching and taking photos of Mary. And he said that he knows where the photos are."

Kate's eyes widened.

"And if it wasn't Tim himself, then, that means there's another suspect," she said.

"Someone who's already guilty of stalking," Tony said. "That's something pretty big. What are we waiting for?"

"Rachel and Dr. Mallard are coming over to get us. Be ready."

Tony and Kate both nodded and grabbed their gear. Whether this turned into something important or not, it was a definite lead.

Gibbs could understand Tim's reticence to trust, but he wished that their only lead didn't depend on someone who was clearly disturbed.

But they had time to figure this out.

...maybe.

Gibbs wasn't so sure. He didn't like that Tim had vanished. Something didn't feel right.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim ran out of breath before he got to the shed. He slowed down and started walking. His mind was all on getting there. He didn't know how that would solve his problem, but he couldn't get away from the idea that it would somehow fix things if he got back to the shed and opened it up.

So many emotions were swirling around in his head that if he couldn't do this, he was sure he'd start screaming. Image after image took over his mind.

The first time he'd seen Mary.

His mother dead.

Mary smiling at him.

The burning house.

Mary afraid of him.

Being arrested.

Over and over, he saw the distressing moments of his life overlapping and merging into one big mass. A part of him really didn't want to go to the shed. He'd looked at the pictures only once and then never again. ...but at the same time, he couldn't stay away. Not now. The truth was in the shed.

"What are you doing here, McGee?"

Tim turned and saw the person he wanted least to see.

Sheriff Drake.

He swallowed again and kept walking.

"I asked you a question, McGee!"

"It's a public street, Sheriff Drake. I can be here as long as I'm not breaking the law. I'm not breaking the law," Tim said.

"But you did."

"No, I didn't," Tim said. "You keep saying that, but I didn't!"

The feeling started to rise up in his mind, setting it on fire. But he tried not to give in to it. It was an anger that was as frightening as it was empowering.

It was an anger he'd felt before.


	19. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19**

"Everyone knows that you're guilty," Sheriff Drake said. "Everyone knows that you killed Mary."

"I didn't!" Tim said, his rising fear combatted with his usual panic at being accused of something.

"Your scarf was found around her neck. She was found at the river where you were always watching her."

"I didn't kill Mary!" Tim said, his voice rising.

"Did you push her into the river or did you lose your grip and she fell?" Sheriff Drake asked.

"I didn't kill her!" Tim said again.

Sheriff Drake was getting closer and closer. Tim felt like he was going to drown in the emotions surging through him.

"I'm not going to let you get away this time, McGee."

Sheriff Drake grabbed him before he was ready. He was strong. He was a large man. Tim was taller, but Sheriff Drake was stronger.

Tim tried to pull away. Sheriff Drake tightened his grip until it hurt.

"You were obsessed with her!" Sheriff Drake said loudly.

Why this charade? Tim couldn't figure it out. Why would he be doing this with no one around to witness it?

"You were always around her! You forced yourself on her! You were no better than your mother! Just another piece of trash!"

"NO!" Tim shouted. The image that accusation conveyed was as bad as being accused of murder. "No, I would never!"

Sheriff Drake shook him violently.

"Admit it! You killed Mary! You strangled her! You wrapped that scarf around her neck and you pulled it tight until she died! You wound it around her neck, even while she hit at you to stop it. Even while she scratched at you. Then, you dumped her body in the river, hoping we wouldn't find it!"

Tim could picture what he was saying all too clearly. He hated the images in his head and he closed his eyes.

"No! I didn't kill Mary!"

Then, before Tim could prepare himself, Sheriff Drake backhanded him across the face. Hard. So hard that Tim fell to the ground in a daze.

He was hauled to his feet before he could get his mind in gear. Sheriff Drake dragged him to his car and threw him into the back seat.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Still no answer from Stan," Tony said. "He's not answering his phone."

Gibbs didn't like that. Something seemed really wrong.

Rachel and Ducky pulled up in Rachel's car. She started to get out.

"Don't bother," Gibbs said. "Let's go."

"What are you thinking, Gibbs?" Kate asked.

"That something is wrong," Gibbs said. "Let's go."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim tried to re-engage his mind. He felt like he was stuck in between the present and the past. Part of him wanted to cry out for his mother and tell the police that he had been in bed. Part of him wanted to protest that he hadn't killed Mary. Until he could remember where he was, Tim didn't want to speak.

"I gave you a chance. You could have left. No one damaged your car. You could have left Hazard!"

Tim opened his eyes.

"What are you doing?"

"I gave you a chance and you gave it up, McGee. You'll have to accept the consequences."

Tim sat up on the car seat.

"Where are we going?"

"To the river."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Turn left, here," Ducky said.

"Still no answer from Stan, Boss," Tony said, looking up from his phone again.

"I can't imagine why he wouldn't answer," Ducky said. "I've always found Stan to be extremely conscientious. In fact, even though he's never liked Tim, he still insisted that I call him if we had any trouble."

"I don't see any sign of Tim," Rachel said. "Strange. I would have sworn that this is where Tim would have come. Ducky?"

"I agree. If this was your topic of conversation...but, he also does like going to the river, although not as much since Mary was killed there. He said that he hates it now. However, he has returned there once since Mary's death."

Gibbs looked at the shed. It didn't look like anyone had gone inside.

Something was wrong, and he just didn't know what it was.

"Ducky, what do you think is the most likely? You're the one who knows him best."

"Unfortunately, that's not saying much, Agent Gibbs."

"What do you think?" Gibbs asked again.

"I think that it's odd that he's not here. I would have expected it of him. So perhaps he is at the river. We could check there."

"Okay. Then, let's go."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

When the car stopped, Tim tried to get out, but it was a police car. The doors didn't open from the inside.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

Sheriff Drake didn't answer. Instead, he got out of the car and walked over to the door. He pulled out his gun and pointed it at Tim as he opened it.

"Get out."

Tim didn't move for a moment. He'd never felt as though he was in physical danger from the people in Hazard before. Now, though, he did. He could see that something was going to happen. Strangely enough, it had tamped down on his usual emotional overload. He couldn't think beyond the new potential for physical damage. He couldn't even think of something to say.

"I said, get out of the car, McGee."

Tim slowly got out and edged himself along the car, looking at the gun, knowing it was no idle threat.

"You have two choices, here, McGee. Either you admit that you killed Mary and I'll arrest you, or deny it and I shoot you right here."

Tim said nothing.

"No one will believe that I've done anything wrong. Because I haven't. You're like those mongrel dogs, McGee. You should have been put down years ago."

Tim still said nothing. He wasn't even sure what he was thinking. He was just staring at the sheriff. Waiting for him to do something.

"Your mother brought you here and everyone knew from the beginning that you were disturbed. Everyone could see it, and you've only got worse over time. You're the lowest order of scum, McGee. I'd be doing the world a favor if I killed you. I'd be doing _you_ a favor. What kind of a life do you expect to have? Do you honestly think that there's anything you could do that would be worthwhile? You have nothing. You're worth nothing. You _are_ nothing."

Tim stood there, the venomous words washing over him. They were thoughts he'd seen in the eyes of the people in Hazard but had never heard spoken aloud. He was surprised that they hurt.

"Nothing to say? No shouting at me for talking this time?"

The gun came up.

"Which is it, McGee?"

Tim still couldn't seem to speak. He even tried, but he couldn't. No words came into his mind. For all the problems he'd had, this was worse. Death. Only his own instead of someone else's.

"You burned down the shed in retaliation, and poor Deputy Burley was your target."

"What?" Tim asked, shock finally loosening his tongue.

"You burned down the shed. Payback for your house. Too bad that Stan had to be inside when it happened. A terrible tragedy that your insanity led to someone else's death. So not only did you kill Mary, but you also killed Stan."

Tim stared at him, horrified.

"I didn't burn anything. I didn't set the fire!"

"You'll be dead. Everyone will believe it. Crazy Tim McGee finally snapped like everyone knew he would."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Stan woke up, feeling extremely woozy. He wasn't sure what had happened, but he _was_ sure that he hadn't come off the winner. He tried to get up and realized that he couldn't.

He heard a clink and found that he'd been handcuffed. He felt the cuffs. Standard police issue if he felt right.

He tried to clear his head and look around.

"Where am I?" he said aloud.

There was no response.

"Hello?" he called out.

Nothing. Okay. Alone, then. That could be good or bad.

He looked around and his eyes widened at what was all around him.

"What the–?"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"You can't kill Deputy Burley!" Tim said.

"I won't. You will."

"No!" All the emotional overload that had been tamped down in the face of physical danger was starting to push forward again. "No! You can't let him burn!" he begged.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Photos. Photos of Mary. They were all around him, tacked to the walls, in layers, even. This was stalking, obsessive behavior. ...maybe the kind that would lead to murder. This was _years'_ worth of photographs. Who would do this?

And it wasn't just Mary. Tim was in a number of them, too.

Tim. If he was _in_ the photos, he couldn't be the photographer.

So who was?

Then, Stan noticed something else.

A fire.

It was just a small one at the moment, a little rag in a dish. But that little fire was headed for another dish of some kind. Stan couldn't tell what was in it, but he was willing to bet that it would start a much larger fire.

Whoever had taken these pictures was now getting rid of them.

"And me. Oh, no. No, I am _not_ going to burn up. No way!"

Stan started to struggle to free himself.

"Help!" he shouted, hoping against hope that someone would be out there to hear him. "Help!"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Sheriff Drake started to laugh.

"I don't know why you care so much. Stan disliked you, just like everybody else."

Tim couldn't hear the words anymore. His mind was full of chaos. So many thoughts were roiling around that he didn't know where he was or what was happening. He was lost, but one thing came clear: someone was going to burn. The monster was going to eat him. Almost, Tim could see that shape, that other...person, urging the monster on, the one who had always controlled the monster, the one who had created it.

 _No. No, this can't happen. I can't see this happen again._

Tim saw the monster laughing at him and he suddenly had to fight. He had to stop the fire. No more people burning! He ran at the monster.

...at Sheriff Drake, and he punched him.

He punched him right in the mouth as hard as he could. He broke the skin on his knuckles even as he broke out a couple of the sheriff's teeth.

But he wasn't done. He started fighting, fighting against all the times he'd felt powerless. He had never known what he was fighting. He had never known what to do. He had never known where to turn.

Now, he knew what to do. He had to beat the monster...Sheriff Drake, until he couldn't start the fire. No fires. No more death!

He knocked Sheriff Drake to the ground and punched him again. And again. He thought that he had the upper hand, and he did...

...until Sheriff Drake started fighting back.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"There! Stop the car," Ducky said, pointing out the windshield.

Gibbs could see some commotion on the bank of the river, near where they'd seen Stan earlier that day. Two men were fighting.

Suddenly, one punched the other with enough force that he fell to the ground and didn't move.

"It's the sheriff," Ducky said, almost shocked. "That looks like Timothy on the ground." He started to get out of the car.

Gibbs jumped out first and hurried over as Sheriff Drake aimed his gun at Tim.

"Stop, Sheriff!" he said.

Sheriff Drake looked up. He was bleeding from the mouth and there was evidence of at least one other hit to the face. He was furious, clearly not in the mood to listen _or_ obey.

"He attacked me! He's out of his mind!"

Tim was lying, still unmoving, on the ground. It appeared that Sheriff Drake hadn't held back.

"Don't shoot. Lower your weapon."

Gibbs heard both Tony and Kate get out of the car as well.

"He confessed to killing Mary! When I tried to arrest him, he went nuts!"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"You saw him hitting me. I was defending myself."

"He's unconscious. No need for a weapon."

"He confessed! He told me that he killed Mary!"

"When?"

"Just before you got here."

Gibbs aimed at Sheriff Drake.

"Put your weapon down, Sheriff. I'm not kidding."

Tim stirred.

Ducky started to move toward him. "Timothy..."

"Stay where you are, Dr. Mallard," Gibbs said. "Stand down, Sheriff Drake. Now."

Finally, looking extremely unhappy about it, Sheriff Drake lowered his gun and stepped back. Gibbs gestured to Ducky and both he and Rachel headed over to where Tim lay.

"Timothy, are you all right?"

He gently tapped Tim's cheeks in an attempt to help him regain consciousness.

Tim came awake quickly, looked around and saw Sheriff Drake. Instantly, he shifted from confused to panicked.

"Stop the fire!" he said, loudly. "You have to stop the fire! He's going to burn!"

Rachel tried to calm him down.

"Tim, there's no fire here. It's all right."

"No! It's not all right!" Tim said. "It's not all right! They're going to burn! I have to stop the fire! I can't watch that..."

"Tim, there's no fire!" Rachel said.

Gibbs saw darkening marks on Tim's cheek. That hadn't been from a punch. Tim had been hit hard enough that individual finger marks were becoming visible. Gibbs looked at Tony and raised an eyebrow. Tony nodded and focused on Sheriff Drake, gun ready but not aiming at anyone.

Gibbs put his own gun away and knelt down in front of Tim who still seemed panicked.

"Tim, look at me," he said.

Tim did, almost involuntarily.

"What's going on? Sheriff Drake said that you confessed to killing Mary."

Tim's eyes widened and then, he looked at Sheriff Drake. He started to lunge at him, but Gibbs grabbed him and held him back.

Kept from attacking the sheriff, Tim began shouting.

" _You_ killed Mary!" Tim shouted. "You killed her! You took her away. She was alive when I left her here! You killed her! You were always watching her! You were following her! She didn't tell me but I knew it! You killed Mary!"

"Tim! Stop. Look at me."

Tim wasn't listening. He was so angry that he looked like he would be happy to kill the sheriff. While he could understand the sentiment, Gibbs had to ask questions...and he didn't want to give the sheriff any excuses to react.

"You killed Mary!"

Gibbs shook Tim a little bit to get his attention.

"Tim!"

Finally, Tim looked at Gibbs.

"He killed Mary. He did it. It wasn't me. It was him. He killed Mary."

"We'll look into that. What about the fire?"

That question seemed to push him toward panic again, only this time, Tim didn't try to get at the sheriff, he tried to pull away in the other direction.

Gibbs jerked his head at Rachel and she knelt down beside Tim. He needed someone who could reach Tim in this heightened state.

"Tim, this is your chance," she said. "You've held back because you thought you had to. Now, you can say the words. People are listening to you."

Tim looked at her.

"We're listening to what you have to say, Tim. You don't have to hide it in a drawing. You don't have to bury it in your mind. You can say it. We _need_ you to say what happened."

"He said that...that he burned Deputy Burley! He said that everyone would believe it was me, but it's not! I would never! He said that they were in the house...shed...that...that it was me... but I wasn't there!"

Gibbs saw Tim's mental shift, the fear and panic were fueled by his past as much as his present, and he seemed to get lost in that. What was true?

As Rachel tried to get Tim to connect with her, Gibbs could see that there was really only one thing to do. Tim wouldn't calm down until he saw that there wasn't a fire. There certainly hadn't been a fire at the shed when they'd been there only a few minutes ago.

"Please! Stop the fire!" Tim said.

"Okay. Let's go," Gibbs said. He looked back at Sheriff Drake.

"Tony, you and Kate bring the sheriff along in his car. I'm sure he's worried about his deputy, too."

"He's crazy," Sheriff Drake said. "He's always been crazy. I can't believe you're listening to him."

Tim started toward him again, but Gibbs held him back.

"Come on, Tim. We're going to the shed."

Tim took a deep breath and nodded. He got in the car with Ducky, Rachel and Gibbs.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

"Tim, there was no fire when we were at the shed," Rachel said, gently.

Tim was frantic and refused to be calmed. "Sheriff Drake said that he burned them! He said that Deputy Burley...that he was..."

"We're going to look. Tim...why the shed? What's in there?"

"Deputy Burley is in there! I can't let him burn!"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Stan hoped that someone would hear him shouting for help because the flame was getting awfully close to that dish.

"Help! Someone out there! Help me!"

He'd tried to get free, but the cuffs were fastened correctly, and he couldn't get his hands around to manipulate them. He was cuffed to a pole which meant no movement toward the dish. It was completely out of reach.

Then, as he'd feared, the flickering flame reached the dish and it was definitely something flammable. There was a whoosh and the fire started to spread.

...and there was a lot of fuel for it.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim was out of the car, almost before it stopped.

The shed didn't appear to be burning, but Tim ran at it as if it was. He started pounding on the door.

Gibbs was about to agree with Sheriff Drake that Tim had suffered from a genuine mental breakdown when he heard something.

"Help! I'm in here!"

"Stan," Gibbs said, in surprise.

He ran over to where Tim was trying to break down the door. There was a solid-looking lock on it.

"Rachel, get the bolt cutters from the trunk," he said.

Then, he smelled something.

It smelled like smoke.

"Stan!" he called.

"Gibbs? There's a fire in here! I'd appreciate getting out! Now!"

Rachel ran over with the cutters. Gibbs grabbed them, pushed Tim to the side and cut the lock off. Before he could do any more, Tim pulled the door open and plunged into the shed. Smoke began to billow out.

A fire.

Gibbs ran inside as well.

"Stan!"

"Over here!"

Gibbs ran over and saw Tim trying to beat back the flames that were quickly spreading through the shed.

Spreading via hundreds of photographs.

Of Mary Fields.

This was what Tim had seen. And Tim was in some of these photos.

Gibbs took all this in in a second and then turned his attention to Stan who was cuffed to a pillar in the middle of the shed. Tim had grabbed a burlap sack from the floor and was hitting at the flames.

"Gibbs, am I glad to see you," Stan said. "How about getting me out of here, huh?"

He had a large bruise on the side of his head, but it didn't look like it would be hard to get him free. Gibbs knelt down and popped open the cuffs.

"I think we can do that, Stan," Gibbs said.

He hauled Stan to his feet. Tim didn't seem to have noticed.

"Tim! Let's get out of here!"

There was no response.

Gibbs spared a hand and grabbed Tim's shoulder.

"Tim! Come on!"

Tim stopped and looked at him but refused to leave. There was an expression on his face that told Gibbs Tim wasn't really seeing him.

"Dr. Cranston!"

He didn't like the idea of calling someone else into the burning building, but he wasn't about to leave Tim behind because he'd become lost in his past.

Rachel came running in. She took one look at Tim and understood. She moved close to Tim and took him by the arm.

"Tim, there's no one burning. It's time to get out."

Tim didn't reply, but he resisted being moved.

"Tim, you need to leave the house. There's nothing more you can do."

"But...the fire..."

"They're not in here. Your father isn't in here. Come on."

Tim let her pull him a few steps away. Then, suddenly he pulled away from her and grabbed two handfuls of photos before they could start on fire. Finally, he allowed Rachel to pull him out of the shed. Gibbs helped Stan and they were all out of the shed only a couple of minutes after Tim had run inside.

Stan was coughing and stumbling.

"Thanks, Boss," Stan said. "I really didn't want to burn to death. Wasn't on my list of things to do today."

"Already called the fire station, Boss," Tony said.

Tim walked a few steps away from the shed and then sat down heavily on the ground and covered his head with his picture-filled hands.

There were people gathering as always happened at some kind of commotion. Gibbs could see that Sheriff Drake was not happy about how this had fallen out. At the moment, he wasn't doing anything, but Gibbs made eye contact with Kate. He wanted someone watching the sheriff at all times. Kate nodded without comment.

Then, Gibbs helped Stan to the car and sat him down.

"What happened, Stan?"

"I'm not sure, Gibbs," Stan said. "It's kind of fuzzy."

"Sheriff Drake said that Tim set the fire in the shed."

Stan lifted his head in surprise.

"No. No, the fire was a rag in a dish. It was like a timer. Honestly, it had only just started to spread when you guys got here. If it had been any later, I probably would have been toast. Literally. Obviously, someone hit me, and I'm not sure who it was. Maybe it'll come back, but..."

"What's the last thing you remember?" Gibbs asked, trying to prod Stan's memory.

"I was patrolling like usual. Um...I was here in this part of town and...and I was looking at the shed and..."

"And what?"

"There was someone...coming...out..."

Stan's eyes widened and he looked beyond Gibbs to Sheriff Drake.

Just in time.

"Gibbs!"

Gibbs whirled around, gun out.

Just as Sheriff Drake pulled out his own gun and pointed it at Tim who was now standing, still with the pictures in his hands.

Kate and Tony also had their guns out.

"Stand down, Sheriff Drake!"

"He was coming at me! I'm just defending myself," Sheriff Drake said.

Tim said nothing. He was standing there, afraid, not attacking. Gibbs could see that Sheriff Drake was relying on the public perception of Tim. He'd been hoping to do this before anyone could stop him.

"He's not moving right now," Gibbs said. "Stand down."

"I'm telling you! He's crazy!"

"I'm telling _you_ that if you don't lower your weapon, I will shoot you."

Sheriff Drake gradually lowered his gun.

"Agent DiNozzo, please, take Sheriff Drake's weapon from him."

Sheriff Drake rounded on Gibbs. "Oh, no. I'm not having some state man take my weapon. _I_ am the law in this town, not you."

"If you start abusing your position, you lose it," Gibbs said.

"Abusing my position? You don't know anything that's going on here. You're not from Hazard. You know nothing about Hazard or about _him_!" He pointed vigorously at Tim. "I was elected sheriff and you will not take over my position."

He started to raise his gun, although it was questionable whether or not he was really intending to fire, but even before Gibbs or anyone else could react, there was a blur of movement and Tim tackled the sheriff, the photographs flying from his hands. The move was so sudden, so unexpected that Sheriff Drake dropped his gun.

"I won't let you hurt anyone else! I won't! You killed Mary! You tried to kill Deputy Burley! I won't let you kill anyone else! No more!"

Kate and Tony moved in, pulling Tim away from the sheriff before he could inflict more damage, Tim still fighting to get at him. Before he could recover, Gibbs moved in and cuffed the sheriff.

"Sheriff Drake, you are under arrest."

"What for?"

"For now, attempted murder of Stan Burley. We'll see about another murder charge later." He yanked Sheriff Drake to his feet and pushed him toward the cruiser.

The fire engine could be heard coming up the street and in moments, the fire in the shed was being doused. Gibbs wasn't sure how much would be salvaged, but he watched as Rachel picked up one of the photos Tim had dropped. She looked at it and then at Tim with a sad and understanding expression.

Tony and Kate let Tim go at Gibbs' gesture and took over the arrest of Sheriff Drake.

Whatever proof came from all this, public perception would certainly start to change with how public the arrest had been, especially, that it hadn't even been for the murder of Mary Fields. Right now, he could see that Stan had remembered Sheriff Drake as his attacker, and that was something easy to arrest for while they worked through what more they had.

He had expected something to happen, but it hadn't been this. They would need some time to work through it all. Then, he looked over at Tim who had sat down on the ground again. There were two large marks on his face from Sheriff Drake. There might be an assault charge as well, once Tim managed to make a statement about what had happened.

What would have happened if they hadn't been here? He'd be willing to bet that Tim would be dead with no one to question because Stan would likely be dead as well.

Gibbs turned back and looked at the crowd of people who were muttering to each other. There was still the potential for some unrest.

"The excitement is over! Go home!" he said.

There was some movement. Then, he was surprised by Stan standing up from the car. He was leaning against the car door, but he was standing, and he was someone they knew and trusted.

"You'll find out all the details soon enough," Stan said. "You know that everyone will know by tomorrow. Just be patient and wait. Go on."

There was some nervous laughter and then they started to disperse, still muttering to each other and who knew what they'd be saying, but this was a small town and that's the way things were. Gibbs knew that well enough. It was both a blessing and a curse.

But, for now, there was time.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Rachel looked at the picture she'd picked up. It was a photograph of Tim and Mary, sitting beside each other at the river. Mary was smiling and Tim was laughing. They both looked happy with each other. There was no fear from either of them.

And now, that was gone.

She looked at Tim. He was still sitting on the ground, tears making dirty tracks through the soot on his face. Ducky was attending to Stan until he could be taken to a hospital for stitches. Tony and Kate were taking Sheriff Drake back to the police station to get him in holding until he could be transferred.

Tim was alone.

Rachel walked over and sat down beside him.

"You did a very good thing, today, Tim."

"I didn't want anyone else to die. Like Mary," he said, softly.

"And no one did. You helped get Deputy Burley out of the shed, and you even thought enough to get these photos."

"The sheriff took them all. Mary knew about it."

"She did? And she never told you?"

"No. Never. I saw him once. Then, I saw him over and over again, always taking pictures of Mary. I asked her, but she wouldn't talk about it. She said it was nothing. I let her, but I couldn't forget about it."

"So you drew it."

Tim nodded.

"And I didn't do anything about it. I didn't save her."

"You couldn't have been with her all the time, Tim. If you're right and the sheriff did kill her, we don't even know _why_ he did it." Rachel hesitated for a moment, but Tim was in an uncommonly sharing mood. Maybe she could push now. "Tim, did you see your father die?"

He wouldn't look at her.

"What did you see? You _were_ at the house."

Tim nodded, reluctantly. Rachel decided to push a little more.

"What did you see?"

"Mom said I was home in bed, that she'd seen me," he whispered.

"But she was lying, wasn't she." Instead of trying to get him back on topic, Rachel dealt with what Tim actually said. He'd already admitted to more now than he ever had before.

"She said I was home. She told everyone. Even the police."

"That wasn't true, though, was it."

Tim didn't look at her, but finally, he said something that _he_ knew, not what others had _said_.

"It wasn't true," he said, his voice still soft. "She was at the house. I saw her. She went inside. The fire started. I ran. I was scared. She never saw me. I didn't tell anyone...and they died. They burned. Both of them."

No details, but she wasn't surprised by that. Getting Tim to admit that he'd seen his mother at the house was a major breakthrough. There was no reason to really get into the details, though. Not yet.

"It wasn't your fault, Tim."

"I hate him. He left us. Things would have been good with him home. Those men wouldn't have come to our house night after night. We wouldn't have come here. I wouldn't be here." Tim dropped his head to his knees. "If he had just stayed with us."

"Hating him doesn't mean it's your fault. It sounds like you had a reason to be angry."

Tim didn't respond. He just wiped away the tears, smearing the soot across his face.

Rachel looked up and saw Gibbs approaching. She had no idea what he was going to say or ask. She wasn't sure if she should warn him about not being too brusque.

Gibbs knelt down in front of Tim.

"Tim?"

Tim said nothing.

"Thank you."

Tim lifted his head. He looked surprised.

"For what?"

"You saved Stan. He worked with me a few years ago."

"You knew him before coming here?"

"Yeah. He's a friend."

"Oh. Is he okay?"

"He will be. Sheriff Drake hit him pretty hard."

"He didn't...burn?"

"Not at all."

"Good."

Gibbs smiled a little. Then, he looked at Rachel with a question in his eyes. She shrugged. Whatever he wanted to ask, she had no idea how Tim would respond...if he would at all.

"Did you ever see Sheriff Drake taking photos of Mary?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"How often?"

"I didn't count. A lot. Not every time we were at the river, but a lot of times."

"Over what time frame?"

"A couple of years at least."

"And you've been in that shed before?"

Tim nodded.

"How did you get in?"

"It was a simple padlock. I just popped it out."

"Why?"

"I wanted to know what was in it. I didn't know who it belonged to. I was curious."

"So you broke in?"

"Yes. It's not like I could just ask someone."

Gibbs smiled again. No apologies. Given the situation, Gibbs didn't seem inclined to press him on it.

"What did you do, then?"

"Nothing. I left. I didn't know whose it was, not at first. Then, I saw Sheriff Drake taking pictures. Mary didn't like him, either. It wasn't just me."

There was no need to ask why he hadn't told anyone. In this town, would anyone have listened to him when he accused the sheriff? Stan might have. Ducky would have, but Tim didn't have any reason to think they would, not when he first found this. And at that, perhaps, Ducky _wouldn't_ have listened when Tim had seen what was in this shed.

"What's going to happen, now?"

"Now, we're going to keep investigating."

Tim nodded and said nothing more, although Rachel could see that he wanted to ask about himself.

"Can I go back to Ducky's house, then?"

"Yeah." Gibbs looked back. "Dr. Mallard!"

Ducky came over.

"Yes, Agent Gibbs?"

"Take Tim back to your place. Rachel will go with you. I'll take care of Stan."

Ducky's eyes flicked briefly to Tim and he made no comment.

"Of course. Timothy, come with me."

Rachel stood up and watched as Tim got up as well and meekly followed Ducky to his car.

Then, Tim stopped and looked at Gibbs.

"I didn't kill her. I got mad. I yelled at her, but I never wanted her to die."

Gibbs met his gaze.

"I believe you."


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21**

After getting Stan off to the hospital, Gibbs turned his attention to the scene. First, he made sure he got all the photos Tim had grabbed. He looked at each one. They all appeared to have been taken without the knowledge of the subjects. Some were just of Mary, but many of them had Tim in them as well, and they were happy with each other. One in particular was of the two of them sitting on the bank of the river. Mary was the focus and she was laughing. Tim was also laughing, his hands slightly blurred indicating that he'd been the one instigating the laughter. They both looked like normal people enjoying each other's company.

It was sad that this was all that was left of a friendship that seemed to be helping Tim heal just a little bit from the life he'd led. As he looked through the photos, one after another, Gibbs found himself suddenly determined not to leave Tim to the kind of misery he'd likely fall back into for lack of any other option. Tim had fallen through the cracks his whole life. That was going to stop.

He wasn't sure how he'd do it, but he was ready to figure that out.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim walked into Ducky's house feeling drained and empty. He had enough energy to walk to the couch and sit down. Then, he decided he didn't want to move anymore. He tried to tell himself that things were better than they had been, but he didn't really feel that way. Mary was still dead. His life still sucked. He was pretty sure that most of the town wouldn't believe that he was the innocent one in all this.

 _And I said something about what happened that night._

That somehow seemed like a betrayal, even though she had been dead for years and could never be punished for it. He felt as though he'd betrayed her. ...and that she had betrayed him. And that he had betrayed his father.

And all those feelings just got mixed up with Mary and made him generally miserable.

Thankfully, Ducky and Rachel seemed content to leave him alone, for now. He wasn't sure how long the silence would last, but he was happy enough to have it that way for now. His head and face ached, and he had nearly been killed. That was actually a little frightening, but in a different way from how he usually felt.

"Timothy, are you hungry?"

Tim opened his eyes and looked at Ducky.

"No. Thanks, Ducky."

"Very well. I'll put a plate in the fridge for you. If you feel hungry later, you can warm it up."

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Ducky withdrew and Tim closed his eyes again. But he was only left in silence for a couple of seconds.

"Timothy?"

He opened his eyes.

"Yeah?"

"Here. This will help with the bruises."

Ducky held out an ice pack. Tim took it and gingerly put it over his face.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Tim leaned back and closed his eyes once more. The ice pack calmed the fiery pain.

Fire.

He hated fire. He hated people dying. There had been a fire today. Stan had almost died.

 _I almost died._

For some reason, his mind kept going back to that. Sheriff Drake had intended to kill him.

 _And someone else saved me. Someone didn't want me to die._

He sat there on the couch for a long time. At one point, Ducky came and took the ice pack back, but he didn't push Tim to talk. Tim wasn't really thinking much. It was just the confusion of people dying and the shock of nearly dying himself.

The sun went down. It got darker.

Tim sat up. Almost without thought, he dug down into the cushions of the couch and pulled out a blackened photo of a family.

Of his family.

He stood and walked out to the back. He sat down at the table and leaned on it. He stared at the photo. He wondered why his mother had kept it all the years she had.

Then, the door opened. Tim looked up.

"Timothy, are you all right?"

Tim laughed a little.

"No. No, Ducky. I'm not all right."

"May I join you?"

"Yeah."

Ducky walked over and sat down.

"Your father died?"

"Yes. In a fire."

Ducky's tone was very gentle. "Who was with him? You kept talking about more than one person."

"The woman he left us for. I don't know who she was. I just know that she was with him. ...when my mother started the fire that burned them." There was more he could have said, but no. No, he'd never say that.

Tim looked at Ducky, perversely wanting to see what Ducky thought of that declaration.

All he saw was sympathy. A bit of surprise, yes, but no disgust or disbelief.

"Your mother?"

"Yes."

"You saw her?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, Timothy."

"What for? You didn't do anything."

"I'm not apologizing for something I did wrong. I'm expressing sympathy for your struggles. Even if that's all I can do for you, I will do it."

Tim looked at Ducky for a long moment and then a memory came back to him. One he'd forgotten, although not deliberately. It just had been so closely tied to the things he didn't like thinking about that it was lost with the rest of it.

"My dad gave me the scarf."

If Ducky was surprised at the sudden change in topic, he didn't show it.

"When?"

"When he left or just after he left. Something like that. I don't remember exactly. He said it was a promise that he wouldn't forget me. But he lied. He never came back. So I went to him. I knew where he was living. I'd heard Mom talk about it." Tim felt the tears and he swallowed hard to get rid of them, but his voice was thick. "I wanted him to come home and make things right again. But he didn't. He died."

"Although it's years after the fact, I'm sorry for your loss."

"I don't know if I am or not. I hate him, but at the same time, I wanted him to come home. I don't know." He slid the photo across the table. "This is him."

Ducky looked at the photo. He probably realized where it had come from, but he didn't ask or comment on its state.

"You all look happy."

"Yeah." Suddenly, Tim felt bitter and angry again. Better that than to think more about what had ended his happiness. "Happy. And it was all a lie. All of it. I don't know why she bothered to keep it. Just another lie!" He stood up and walked onto the grass.

"Timothy, wait."

Tim stopped but didn't turn around.

"It wasn't a lie."

"How would you know?"

"Because what I see in this photo is not a lie, but a truly happy family. I don't know what led to the end of that happiness, but _this_ is not a lie."

Tim turned around and, for the first time, he asked. He'd never asked. He'd learned to stop asking questions because he was afraid of the answers. But now, he asked.

"Then, why did this happen? Why did he leave? Why did he die? Why did all this have to happen to me?" he asked.

"I wish I could tell you, Timothy, but I can't. I didn't know your father at all. I only barely knew your mother before she died."

"I know. No one can tell me that. Mom never did, and I never asked her. They're both dead. No one can explain it."

"But that doesn't mean that you have no hope, Timothy. You have the chance, now, to do more, to _be_ more."

Tim shook his head. "No, Ducky. It's a nice thought, but nothing has changed." He walked back to the table and picked up the picture. "Even if you're right and this isn't a lie. The little kid in this picture doesn't exist anymore." He sighed. "He died in the fire, too."

He dropped the photo back to the table and went inside. He lay down on the couch and tried to go to sleep.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Ducky picked up the picture and looked at it sadly. It was his first glimpse of the child Tim had been. He could see that wealth was not part of the McGee family, but they looked to be getting by. Tim was smiling widely at the camera in front. Margaret and John McGee were standing behind him, arms around each other. They truly did look happy. Ducky wondered what had led to the collapse of the marriage. Perhaps it was something as simple as money. Many a marriage had been ruined because of financial concerns. It was also possible that one or both had strayed. All in all, this photo was the beginning of a tragedy, and the end of that tragedy was embodied in the young man in Ducky's living room.

The door opened and Rachel came out.

"Ducky?"

He smiled.

"Yes, Rachel?"

"I had a call from Gibbs. They're splitting between staying the night with Deputy Burley and Sheriff Drake. He's been formally booked for assault and attempted murder."

"What about Mary Fields?"

"We don't have enough evidence at this point. What we know is that he was stalking her and that Tim says he killed her, but Tim didn't see him do it and we'll have to investigate, but now, we have a reason to, and a specific person to look at. That will help."

"You may want to see this," he said, sliding the photo across the table.

Rachel walked over and sat down. She picked it up and Ducky was surprised to see an expression of regret on her face.

"Do I detect some unprofessional emotion, Dr. Cranston?"

She smiled and looked up.

"Perhaps. I've never been very good at completely separating myself from the problems my patients have. It has made for some difficulties, but I think it makes me a better therapist, as long as I don't let that emotion overrule what I know is necessary. What kind of a therapist would I be if I didn't see the pain that comes from losing a happy family?"

"You are convinced that the happiness is unfeigned, then?"

"Not knowing what broke them up, if the infidelity came first or something else, I can only assume that it was happy. Certainly, Tim's happiness was real, which only makes the subsequent changes that much worse."

"He still has no hope of his lot improving."

"No surprise there, I'm afraid. Why would he? Beyond the removal of Sheriff Drake from the equation, nothing has really changed for him. His family is still dead and broken. Mary is still dead. His home is still burned. He still has no prospects. While those of us outside of his life can see the potential for more, he sees nothing. If you don't mind, I'll keep coming to try to talk to him, if he'll let me now that we've arrested Sheriff Drake."

"You think he might not?"

"I'm almost positive that he won't see the point. He may be open to it if I push it enough. I can only hope that he will."

Rachel looked at the photo again.

"Ducky, would you mind if I imposed on you tonight?"

"In what way?"

"Could I stay here?"

Ducky smiled. "In other circumstances, that might sound like a proposition, not an imposition."

Rachel laughed and held up her left hand. "Happily married, I'm afraid."

"Ah, such a shame. Well, I do have a spare room since Timothy won't use it. You are welcome to stay. May I ask why?"

"Two reasons. First, I think tonight will be unstable. People saw Sheriff Drake arrested by strangers and Tim _not_ arrested. They may take matters into their own hands _or_ they could really start thinking, but I've seen it go both ways in my time. The more people on hand, the better. Second, I want to be here for Tim if he needs me. He had a difficult day, full of bad memories and near disaster."

"Yes. I have to confess that I was surprised to see him mixing the present and the past as he did."

"It was the situation. A person who was in danger of dying in a fire. I don't know that he would have in any other circumstance. As troubled as Tim is, he isn't living in the past."

"He's barely living at all."

"True, but what life he has is pretty firmly in the present because the past scares and confuses him."

Ducky sighed again and nodded.

"I just wasn't ready for everything to explode the way it did."

"I don't think anyone was."

Suddenly, Ducky wanted to know where things really stood. Rachel had been speaking only in terms of Tim's mental health, and now, for the first time, that wasn't enough. Ducky had retired and left his job as a medical examiner because he had tired of seeing murders. He had known that in a place like this there would be little need for his skills. Since his skills _had_ been needed, he had used them, and he had seen, in detail, what had happened to Mary Fields. He couldn't leave it at that.

"Tell me, then, where things stand. What will happen next in terms of the investigation?"

"Without some other evidence, it will be difficult to convict Sheriff Drake of Mary Fields' murder. The photos indicate obsession and stalking, even the few that we have since they were obviously taken without permission and while Tim is in some of them, Mary is in all of them. Tim was not the focus. Mary was. This will give the SBI team a reason to search Sheriff Drake's home, and will skew the efforts toward seeing if evidence can be found linking him to her death. Regardless, he _will_ be charged with attempted murder. Stan Burley remembers him and knows who attacked him. We have an eyewitness. We also have Tim's witness that Sheriff Drake claimed he would kill Deputy Burley and everyone would think it was Tim who had done it. Now, a good defense lawyer would try to get that dismissed as simple hearsay, but with Deputy Burley's account, it will sound more like another nail in the coffin. He'll be convicted. If evidence is found showing that he did kill Mary Fields, then, he will also be charged with that. Assault and attempted murder won't get a life sentence, but murder, especially with the stalking being long-term, likely will."

"Would Timothy get the scarf back?"

"It's possible...if he wanted it. It depends on how the investigation ends up. Certainly, he wouldn't get it back before a trial. It's the murder weapon and, therefore, evidence. Why?"

"Timothy told me that his father gave that to him when he left, as a promise that he wouldn't leave him alone. While he hated his father, he also had wanted him to come back and the scarf meant enough to him that he kept it all these years."

"Oh, I see. He won't be getting it back soon, regardless. There's just no way that could happen with it being so important to the case."

"Of course. I just didn't want him to lose that one slightly-positive connection he had to his father."

"It is a possibility, I'm afraid, and with it being the murder weapon, he may not want to have it back."

"True."

Rachel stood up. "After today's excitement, I think I'll turn in, but if something happens, please wake me up if I don't on my own."

"Of course."

Ducky watched her go back into the house. He looked at the photograph once more. Then, he carried it inside and laid it on the table beside the couch where Tim was sleeping.

 _I won't let this be the end, Timothy. You will not be lost, not if I can help it._


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22**

Kate was sitting with Gibbs at the police station. They weren't sure what would happen tonight, but they were hoping that their caution would be unnecessary. The other officers were clearly unsure of what they should do. It was a small police force in Hazard. Besides Stan and the sheriff, there were only five other officers who worked there. One was on duty. He was dividing his time between pacing and sitting awkwardly at one of the desks away from Kate and Gibbs.

Tony was sitting with Stan at his house. Stan had been checked over and released so long as he wasn't left alone. Stan hadn't been too happy about being told to take it easy for a night, but Gibbs forced him to stay home. Tony was going to trade off with Kate halfway through the night. Gibbs had decided to stay at the station the whole night, just in case.

"Gibbs, what now?" Kate asked.

Gibbs slid the stack of photos across the table.

"These are the photos Tim grabbed. I got some from the shed, but they're damaged. Found some fingerprints on the door. Don't know whose yet."

Kate picked up the photos and looked at them. She was quiet for a long time as she looked through them. Tim had managed to grab about 30 pictures. Whatever else they got, this couldn't change. She spread them out on the table. They didn't seem to be organized. They were clearly not all from the same time. Tim's clothing didn't change much, but Mary's did. In some she was wearing a dress. In others, shorts. That meant that the photos hadn't been organized inside the shed, either. Maybe there wasn't room for organization. Maybe it was just a general obsession, but she found it interesting that there was such a range of events depicted in the random grab Tim had done.

In two of the photos, Mary was looking right at the camera. Her expression was unhappy in one, and in the other, there was a fading smile. She had seen Sheriff Drake taking pictures and she didn't like it. There was no question of that. Sheriff Drake couldn't claim that. He also couldn't claim that he was making sure Tim wasn't doing something to her because she was alone in a number of the photos. Not all of them were at the river, either.

"Do you think he kept copies, maybe digital?" she asked.

Gibbs shrugged.

"We're going to need a warrant to search his house. Gibbs, if he did kill her, unless he confesses, we're going to need to find more evidence than we've got so far. Stalking, yes, but murder? I don't like him, but we can't just assume that we know the story."

Gibbs nodded silently.

Kate got the feeling that Gibbs wasn't even thinking about the case which was a surprise. Gibbs didn't ignore a case that wasn't finished.

"Gibbs?"

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Why do I feel like you're not even really thinking about who killed Mary?"

Gibbs smiled slightly.

"We need to find out who killed her."

"Yes, you're right, but what are you really thinking about?"

"Abby should have information for us about Sheriff Drake, tomorrow," he said.

Now, it was Kate's turn to raise an eyebrow at Gibbs' obvious subject change. Still, if he wasn't interested in sharing whatever was really on his mind, she knew that she wouldn't be able to get it out of him. Not until he was ready.

"Good. I heard you on the phone with Morrow. What did he have to say?"

"We'll have a warrant tomorrow. He's going to send another team out to help make sure things stay calm."

"You think something will happen tonight?"

Gibbs suddenly looked over at the officer on duty.

"What do _you_ think, Officer Dorneget?"

The officer's eyes widened at being addressed by Gibbs.

"Uh...about what, sir?"

"Don't call me, sir. Will something happen tonight?"

"Something? Like what?"

Kate turned in her chair so she was fully facing the younger man.

"Like the people in this town deciding that they know better than we do what should be done and taking matters into their own hands...like they've already done once."

"You mean Tim's house," he said.

"Yes."

"I _hope_ not, ma'am," he said.

Kate let her skepticism show on her face.

"Hazard has always been a safe place. I grew up here. Mary being killed was a real shock to everyone. The last murder in Hazard before this was probably 50 years ago. I don't know who set the fire, but that was wrong. We wanted to do something. Sheriff Drake was the one who didn't want to investigate it. He's the sheriff! He's the boss!"

"What about Deputy Burley?"

"He's the only one who ever dared cross the sheriff, and he didn't ever get in trouble for it."

"Until today?"

Dorneget winced a little. "Yeah."

Gibbs gestured for the young officer to join them. He hesitated and then walked over, dragged a chair to the table and sat down.

"What's your first name, Officer Dorneget?"

"Ned."

"How long have you been an officer?"

"Just two years, sir...Agent Gibbs."

"And you grew up here?"

He nodded.

"So you knew Mary?"

"Yes. As much as anyone did. She never made many friends. She seemed to be a loner."

"Was she teased?"

"No. All the guys wanted to go out with her."

"Including you?" Kate asked.

Ned shook his head. "No. Not me."

"But did she have friends?"

"A few, I guess. I didn't really pay attention. I was a theater kid. She wasn't. I had my own friends."

"Why stay here?"

Ned shrugged. "I like it here. My parents are getting older. I don't want to leave them alone. And Sheriff Drake gave me a start. I figured I could get some experience here and then try to get a job somewhere else, maybe get my parents to come with me."

"What about Tim McGee?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah, I knew him. Everyone knew him or about him. It's a small town."

"And?" Kate asked.

Ned looked nervous.

"Why?"

"Because, not only has a woman been murdered, the sheriff also accused Tim McGee of that murder. Tim McGee has now accused him in return. We've found that Sheriff Drake owned the shed where these photos were found. Photos of both Mary Fields _and_ Tim McGee. Tim McGee's home was torched by people who had decided he was guilty, and no one seemed willing to do anything about that, whether they thought it was right or not. This safe little town has been anything but safe for one man who has lived here for 20 years. Now, we're trying to get at the truth. That is _your_ job as a police officer. If you can't handle that, then, you're in the wrong business. The truth isn't always going to be easy or convenient. Sometimes, it's painful. Sometimes, it's not what you want it to be, but that's still your job."

Ned was quiet for a few seconds after Kate's lecture. Then, he looked at them both and squared his shoulders.

"Well, my mom didn't like Mrs. McGee," he said.

"Why not?" That was a new one. No one had ever said anything about Margaret McGee, only about her son.

"Because she didn't fit in here. I never knew exactly why. When I was young, she wouldn't tell me, and then, after she died, she wouldn't say because she didn't think it was right to talk about the dead when they couldn't defend themselves. So it wasn't just Tim with the problem. It was his mom, too."

"And Tim?"

"Well, no one liked him."

"Why? Clearly, you don't seem to have the same vehement reaction that others do, but you don't like him, either."

"I can't speak for everyone, but, for me, it's because he scared me."

"How?"

"He was in my class in third grade," Ned said. "People already thought he was a weird kid, even then, but I didn't understand it back then. Once, we were at recess. Tim never played with anyone. He would just sit and play with that scarf he always wore, sometimes on the swing. The teachers made him take it off during class, but he'd always put it on for recess. Always. Even when it was hot outside. One of the kids took it from him." He shrugged. "Tim completely freaked out. I mean, you've never seen anything like it. He was screaming and crying as if the kid had physically attacked him. When he got it back, he refused to take it off for the rest of the day. Mrs. Lenz didn't know what to do with him, but she let him sit at his desk. He wouldn't do anything except hold onto the scarf with one hand and draw with the other for the rest of the day. He wouldn't go out to recess. He wouldn't go to lunch. It scared everyone. Including me. We were just kids! We didn't know what all that meant. Actually, I still don't know what all that meant. All I know is that Tim got quiet when he got older. If people left him alone, he left them alone...but he was still really strange. Those of us who grew up with him in school just couldn't forget that."

"And?"

"And after I went to college, I learned some stuff. I figured that there was probably something wrong with him, something that had twisted his mind, but I'm not a psychologist. I don't like him. He makes me really uncomfortable, but I can't hate him for having problems. And I hate that no one ever defended him when Alan would go after him. That was the worst thing, the thing I really regret. None of us ever stepped up to stop him when we could have."

"The sheriff?" Kate asked in surprise.

"His son. Alan Drake, Jr." Now, Ned glanced nervously toward the door where the holding cells were located. He lowered his voice. "No one really likes Alan, either. Tim was scary and weird. Alan was just a jerk. But he was the kind of jerk that people fawn over in high school. Then, you get out into the real world and you wonder why you ever thought he was cool. Maybe he's changed since then, but what little I've seen of him, I doubt it."

"Why did Alan pick on Tim?"

"Because he could. He knew that no one liked Tim. No one wanted to defend Tim against Alan. And Tim was the only one he did that to, so he wouldn't be punished more than likely because the teachers didn't care, either. You know what the worst thing is?"

"What?"

"Looking back, I know Tim hated how he was treated, but I don't think he ever expected anything better. Can you imagine feeling like that? Like whatever bad you get is just what you're going to get?"

"So Tim was never violent?"

"No. I can't think of a single time he hurt someone...well, except for the fight that Alan started in high school. Tim took the first swing, but Alan was sure asking for it."

"No other time?"

"No. Never. He'd fight back, but he wouldn't start it. Tim's weird and kind of scary, but he's not dangerous to anyone...except maybe himself, I guess."

Kate nodded. She'd never had the feeling that Tim would react physically to most things, but it was nice to hear the same thing from someone who had known Tim most of his life.

"So with Sheriff Drake under arrest and Tim still free, what do you think?"

Ned shrugged. "I don't know. It takes a lot to work people up around here."

"Like a murder?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah. Like that. But you didn't arrest Sheriff Drake for murder. You arrested him for attacking Stan, and people trust Stan. He's the kind of guy it's easy to trust. Like Ducky. They're not from around here, but they didn't come into town and try to turn it into wherever they came from. They came because they _wanted_ to be here and so people trust them. That's why nothing ever happened at Ducky's place. Some people might have thought about it, but they won't go after Ducky even if they don't agree with what he's doing. If Stan says that Sheriff Drake attacked him, people are going to think twice about it. I don't think they'll do anything because it's too confusing. I hope I'm right."

"So do I," Kate said.


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

 _Tim found a flat rock in the mud and flung it sideways at the river. It skipped three times before sinking into the water._

" _How do you do that, Tim?" Mary asked._

 _Tim looked at Mary and raised an eyebrow._

" _I pick up a rock and I throw it," he said with a smile._

 _Mary laughed._

" _No, come on. Really. I've never been able to skip rocks. I throw them and they just sink."_

" _You have to use a flat rock. It won't work with a round one."_

" _Okay. Show me."_

 _Tim shrugged and bent over. He picked out an appropriate rock and then, showed it to Mary._

" _Like this."_

" _Now, show me how to throw it."_

" _Why? It's just a rock. It's nothing special."_

" _Do it anyway."_

" _Okay." Tim turned and, with exaggerated slow motion, he threw the rock into the river. It skipped four times and sank._

" _Like that."_

" _I can't just copy you," Mary said._

 _Tim found another rock and gave it to her._

" _Sure you can. Just try it."_

" _Show me, Tim."_

" _I just did."_

" _No. Show me what I'm supposed to do."_

" _Okay, but it's really not that hard."_

" _Then, stop delaying and show me how easy it is."_

 _Tim beckoned for her to come closer and Mary walked over to him. Carefully, Tim put one arm around her so that he was standing behind her and guiding her hand. Mary stepped back just enough that she was touching him. Tim stiffened a little, but he kept on._

" _I-It's all in the wrist," he said. "It's about the spin. You're not just throwing it. You're flicking your wrist at just the right moment to get the result you want. You want the rock to skip across the water; so you have to keep it horizontal, parallel to the water. You're giving it enough speed that, when it hits the water, it gets flung back up, but it has enough horizontal motion to keep going even when it loses some of its energy to friction."_

 _He curled her pointer finger around the rock and then lifted her hand above her head. Then, he pulled her other arm around her and brought the hand down._

" _Right at parallel, you let it go. Flick it so that it's spinning. If it doesn't spin, it doesn't skip."_

 _Mary let Tim guide her and she flung the rock. It skipped three times and sank._

" _Good job," Tim said._

 _They were still standing very close to each other._

 _For a moment, Tim could just feel her. He was almost hugging her. They were both silent, staring out at the river. Mary didn't speak, but after a few seconds, she turned around, not moving away from him. She looked at him, intently._

" _Thanks, Tim."_

 _Suddenly, Tim was extremely conscious of how close she was and he became uncomfortable. He backed away from her, but this time, he didn't run. He just swallowed and felt his face redden._

" _Y-You're welcome."_

 _Mary smiled and rubbed his arm for a moment. Then, they sat down and watched the sun set._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim opened his eyes and stared up at the dark ceiling. He could still remember how it had felt to be so close to her. He could still remember how _he_ had felt, with his arms around her.

Then, his treacherous mind shifted away from Mary asking him to show her how to skip rocks to those confusing months after his father had left. He sat up, the almost-calm feeling gone, confusion and discomfort back in control. He felt antsy and didn't want to stay where he was, but there was nowhere he could go. He had no home. He had no family. The river wasn't a source of comfort any longer. There was nothing for him. Everything was gone.

There was that overwhelming feeling of everything coming down on him and smothering him. He felt like he couldn't breathe. He stood and started pacing.

Then, the door opened. He looked over.

"Tim?"

The voice. The indistinct figure. He couldn't see details, but there she was, coming out of her room, out of that place where things happened that were so wrong, where he had seen her doing things that she shouldn't have been doing.

"Tim, what's wrong?" The voice was soft and gentle.

"Everything is wrong," he said, closing his eyes tightly, trying to banish the images he still had in his mind. "Everything is wrong. I don't know what to do. Why did we come here? Why did you make me come here? It only made everything worse and it's so bad, now, that it won't ever get better."

He sank back to the couch and dropped his head into his hands.

"Why? Why?"

She came and sat by him.

"I'm not your mother, Tim. It's Dr. Cranston. Rachel, remember?"

He looked up quickly and suddenly realized where he was and _when_ he was.

...and he was horribly embarrassed. He stood and walked away from her.

"It's all right, Tim. You're out of your element and I'm not part of your world. I understand."

While he wasn't sure about trusting her, Tim suddenly _really_ wanted to understand, and maybe it was that moment when he had thought she was his mother, but he had to ask Rachel to help him understand, the way he could never ask his mother, the way he'd never _dared_ ask his mother. He turned back and sat down, looking at her, hoping for something that would help.

"Why is it always there in my mind? Why can't I forget it? Why can't I understand it? Why is it always there, screwing up anything I might try to do?"

"What is _it_ , Tim?" Rachel asked. "I can't answer the question if I don't know what you're asking."

But actually putting words to the things in his head was beyond Tim right now. He just couldn't say it, couldn't articulate what it was...in part because he didn't understand why this had messed him up so badly. It wasn't like he didn't know about sex, what it was, how it happened...why. It was her and all the other things he had seen. There were too many things he had seen that he couldn't speak of. How did he start when he knew that he couldn't finish?

He tried to explain one part of the chaos in his head, knowing that there was no way he could draw it, knowing that it was far from everything, but maybe she could tell him _something_.

"She looked at me," he said. "The door was open. I saw her there...and him...on the bed."

"Who? Your mother?"

Tim nodded.

"And your father?"

He shook his head.

"Who, then?'

"I don't know. There were others, too. I saw and..." He got frustrated again. "It's just not...I don't know! And then, when I saw Dad and... And then, there was Sheriff Drake...looking like... Every time! I just can't _forget_ it. And then, Mary, too... Just the same."

The image of Mary and Alan welled up in his mind and then morphed into his mother and a faceless man, easily replaced by face after face, especially one face he just hated to see, and he hated that association. He decided that he didn't want to know. It wasn't worth it. He got up and walked away from Rachel again, tired of trying to explain, tired of dwelling on the things that made him feel so awful.

"Tim."

He stopped.

"I'm not going to force you to recount things tonight, but I want you hear what I'm going to say to you."

He didn't turn, but he listened.

"You seem to have spent a lot of your life, trying to ignore, forget, get away from all these things that you hate. I understand why. You haven't had the help you need to accept them and they've had too much time to fester. But I can promise you one thing: You will _never_ be able to deal with them if you keep pushing them away. You have to go through the awful feelings before you can let them go. If you don't do that, they'll just keep coming back."

Tim heard, but he said nothing.

"I'm just in that room, there. Ducky's still asleep, I'm assuming. If you need anything, we're here. And tomorrow, if you need anything else that we can't give, there are others who will help you, too."

Tim's throat tightened at the idea that others wanted to help. Instead of saying anything about that, he asked the impossible question. He knew what the answer was, but he still had to ask it.

"Can you bring Mary back?" he asked, thickly.

"No, Tim. I can't do that. No one can do that."

"I know."

She didn't ask him why he'd asked for something that couldn't happen, that he obviously _knew_ couldn't happen. He knew very well that when people died they were gone forever.

He heard the bedroom door close and he turned around again.

 _I'm not going back to sleep, tonight,_ he thought.

That much being decided, he walked over to the couch, sat down and picked up his sketchpad again. He opened up to the unfinished drawing, but he didn't want to finish it. For perhaps the first time, he left a drawing unfinished and turned to a blank page.

For a long time, he just sat and stared at the blank page, pencil in hand, ready to start drawing, but he didn't know what he wanted to draw; so he just sat and stared at the page.

Then, without making any conscious decision, he started to make a few strokes. Long dark lines.

The river.

He needed to go back to it.

But this time, he remembered how worried Ducky had been the other times he had left. He would be upset if he woke up and found Tim gone yet again. It was a new thing to have someone worried about him rather than scared of him.

Paper was so precious to him, but Tim grimaced and ripped out a piece of paper from his sketchpad and wrote a note, telling Ducky that he was at the river.

Then, he quietly left the house, sketchpad in hand.

As he walked along the familiar streets of Hazard, Tim thought about everything that had happened, and except for getting the satisfaction of hitting Sheriff Drake (which he had _really_ enjoyed), he couldn't really say that anything had improved.

 _No, don't think about that stuff. Just get to the river._

He nodded to himself and increased his pace, although he didn't run. He just needed to get there.

Tim kept walking until he could see the dark outline of the river. He found a spot and sat down. He could barely see the page, but he could see enough as the river flowed silently by.

He started to draw.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"I'm going to walk and stretch my legs, Boss," Tony said. "You okay, here?"

"Stan and Kate are on their way over," Gibbs said.

Tony nodded and left the office. There had been nothing during the night, and Rachel hadn't ever called to say that anyone had come after Tim, either. Maybe they had misjudged the people of Hazard, assuming that they'd do more than they'd done. None of the fingerprints they'd gotten had been on file, which wasn't surprising. Many of the people in Hazard worked here, had been born here, and had never left. Unless they'd been arrested before, there was no reason for their fingerprints to be on file. None of the teachers in the schools had been part of it unless their fingerprints just hadn't survived the fire.

Maybe the group of cowards who had burned Tim's home were satisfied with what they'd already done or else they were afraid of doing something else with outsiders in town.

He headed to the river, almost without thinking. In spite of the fact that there were a lot of tendrils to all this, it seemed like the river was the most important place in town. Both Tim and Mary had spent a lot of time there. Sheriff Drake had watched them there. Even Ducky had seen them there.

As he neared the river, he thought he heard voices. It was barely six a.m., so he wondered who was out there.

"You're gonna pay for getting my dad arrested, McGee!"

Tony didn't even hesitate. He started to run.

As he came over the bank, he saw Alan Drake, Jr. standing over Tim who, apparently, hadn't had a chance to get up. No damage yet, but that wouldn't be long in coming, if Tony was any judge.

Alan raised his hand. Tim was clutching something to his chest with one hand and trying to back away with the other. No waiting.

"Hey! Break it up!" he called down.

Alan's hand lowered and he turned toward Tony, looking furious and frustrated.

"You people already arrested my dad. What else are you going to do?"

"I'll arrest you for assault if you hit Tim McGee," Tony said, seriously. "If you start to attack me, I'll draw my gun and fire if you don't back off. What do you want to do? We don't have any vested interest in this. We follow the evidence. You have a vested interest, and you have the option of three things. Two of them are really stupid and one is smart. The smart thing is for you to drop whatever you've got in your hand and walk away. Then, nothing will happen to you. Otherwise, you're either arrested or dead. What's your choice?"

Alan didn't move for just long enough that Tony was worried that he'd have to carry through on his threat.

Then, he turned around and flung the rock he'd held in his hand as hard as he could into the river. He turned a death glare onto Tim and then stalked away, intentionally running into Tony's shoulder as he climbed up the bank.

Tim was sitting motionless, both arms holding whatever it was. He seemed almost frozen in place.

"You all right, Tim?" Tony asked.

Tim looked at him with frightened eyes, but he nodded.

"What are you doing out here?"

"D-Drawing."

"At six a.m.?"

"I was at four a.m., too. So?"

"Here?"

He nodded again and looked past Tony to where Alan had gone.

"You think he'll really leave me alone?"

"I don't know. For a while, at least. Maybe long enough for him to cool down."

Tim looked back at Tony.

"Did you mean what you said?"

"About what?"

"About arresting him if he hit me."

"Yes. Of course."

"No of course about it. Not here."

"Yes, there is. What he was going to do is against the law. I'm in law enforcement."

"So is Sheriff Drake."

"Yeah, well, since he's currently sitting in a jail cell, we won't use him as an example. So what were you drawing at four a.m.?"

"A picture."

"Can I see it?"

Tim now looked a little wary.

"Why?"

"Because you draw some pretty out-there things. I'm curious about what was so important that you had to be drawing it in the middle of the night."

Tim hesitated.

"Hey, I'm no art critic. I'm not a shrink. In fact, I'm just a jock. I don't know anything about it, but I'm curious. Can I see it?"

Maybe it was just knowing how crappy Tim's life had been and how many problems he had, but Tony actually went a step further and was explicit in a way he wouldn't be with most people.

"If you don't want to share, that's fine. I'm not going to force you. I really am just curious."

Then, slowly, Tim held out the sketchpad. The page was a little wrinkled from the confrontation with Alan, but it was still intact.

"It's not finished. I can't draw that well. I have to erase a lot."

Tony raised an eyebrow at Tim and then looked at the picture.

It was the river, of course, but then, there were two figures standing together on the bank. One appeared to be embracing the other. The drawing wasn't finished and there were few details Tony could discern.

"Who is it?"

Tim looked down and at the river before making eye contact for a few seconds.

"Agent DiNozzo, why are you helping me?"

"You can call me Tony if you want. And I'm helping you because you need it, even if you're not asking for it."

Tony sat down on the bank beside Tim. Tim tensed a little bit, but relaxed when Tony just sat there. Tony looked at him and then out at river. Tim was an interesting guy, if one could look beyond his obvious problems.

 _And Mary did that,_ he thought. _Ducky's been trying to do that. It's taken way too long for people to try._

"Nobody ever wanted to help me," Tim said, staring out at the river. "Not until Mary. She kept trying to help me even when she didn't understand what was wrong."

"How did she try?" Tony asked. He wanted to let Tim talk if he would and to get a little bit of calm after the confrontation with Alan.

"I was afraid of getting close to her. She would hug me and...and I would be afraid."

"Why?"

"I don't really know. Just...stuff." Tim actually laughed a little bit. "I know that sounds stupid. Everything gets so screwed up in my head. It should be simple, but it never is. The words just aren't there. When she would get close to me, I'd feel uncomfortable and afraid. Once I even ran away from her because of it. ...but I came back, and she didn't act like it bothered her at all. It must have. I bother everyone, but she never let it show."

"Did it work?" Tony asked.

"Maybe a little. Not much. I mean, I'm still a loony, aren't I?"

"Not really."

Tim scoffed without looking at him.

"Hey, I'm not saying you don't have problems, and that you're not a little out there, but you're not crazy."

"Are you sure about that?" Tim asked. "Most people in this town would disagree with you."

"Actually, I think you're wrong."

Now, Tim actually laughed at him.

"It may not make things any better, but most people here are scared of you. They don't think you're crazy."

"It doesn't make things any better."

"I didn't think it would."

Silence fell for a few seconds. Then, Tim sighed.

"I hate this place. Everything about it, except Ducky."

"Then, why stay?"

"Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. Here, people hate me, but I'm the only one who can do computer repair. Outside Hazard, what am I? A weirdo who can tinker with computers but has no education." He shook his head. "No, Agent DiNozzo...some people get the good things. Others don't. I'm one who doesn't."

"It doesn't have to end like this, you know," Tony said. "Sometimes, things go bad, but they don't have to stay that way. I mean, look at Kate... Agent Todd. She thinks she's hidden it from us, but we all know about it. The reason she's on our team is because she had a really bad experience back in DC. Some guy went nuts and was killing people. He was a sniper. She was the one who was responsible for tracking him down and he almost killed her, too. Your bad stuff has lasted a lot longer, I know, but you can get out of it. It just takes being willing to go somewhere else. Kate moved over a thousand miles away from the bad stuff to get away from it, and I think she's liking it."

Tim finally looked away from the river and at him with a quizzical expression.

"Why are you doing this, Agent DiNozzo? You think I'm weird, too. You don't know me from Adam. You're here to investigate a crime, not help the town freak. You got Sheriff Drake for one thing, even if you didn't get him for killing Mary. Why bother?"

Tony tried to think of how to explain it without sounding condescending. Normally, he didn't worry about stuff like that, but Tim was actually sounding almost like a rational human being, and Tony didn't want to offend him.

"Those clothes look pretty nice. Do they fit?"

Surprised by the change in topic, Tim looked down at himself.

"Yeah, sure."

"Does that mean they don't?"

Tim now looked wary. "Not perfectly, but so what?"

"That's why I'm bothering," Tony said. "Because you are so unfamiliar with people being nice to you that you're worried I'll take back the clothes Ducky had us get. No one should live like that. We don't want leave Hazard with you still in the same situation as you were when we came. ...if we can help."

Tim swallowed and looked down at the sketchpad. Then, he quickly stood up.

"Thank you, Agent DiNozzo. ...but you can't help. You can't change the past, and that's the only way the future could be better."

He clambered up the bank and hurried away, leaving Tony alone.

He sat there for a long time, thinking about what Tim had said. He wondered which part Tim meant...or if he just meant all of it.

"No one can change the past, but maybe, we could help him live with the past as it is," Tony said softly to himself.


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

Sheriff Drake was transferred out of Hazard to be held in the county seat jail until he could be arraigned. Morrow sent another team to help with the continuing investigation which took some of the pressure off Gibbs and his team. They planned to stay in Hazard and start on the investigation of Sheriff Drake, anticipating a day of work, but then, hopefully, a night in their own beds.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Any sign of the sheriff's son?" Gibbs asked the agent who'd been watching the house while they waited for the warrant.

"None. Not from the front, anyway," Agent Lovitz said. "I haven't seen any sign of someone inside, but I guess he could have got in from the back."

"He might be off stewing with friends," Tony said. "He was really mad at Tim."

Gibbs nodded and they headed for the door. He knocked loudly and waited.

No answer.

"Alan Drake! This is Agent Gibbs! We have a warrant to search the premises!"

"Not home?" Kate asked.

Gibbs tried the knob. It turned.

"Ah, small towns," Tony said.

They walked inside the house. It wasn't large, and it didn't have a high level of decor. There was something almost severe about it. Ducky's home was small and plain, but it was welcoming. Those who came to visit felt invited whether they were or not. Here, the feeling was more that one was an intruder.

Kate walked over to the mantel where a number of framed photos were on display. Some of the older photos had a woman standing with Sheriff Drake.

"Mrs. Drake, I'm guessing," Kate said. "Did she die?"

"Don't know yet. Abby's on that," Gibbs said.

"Right." She looked at the pictures. "If she died or they got divorced, it happened a long time ago. Looks like Alan Drake, Jr. is an only child."

"Well, he certainly lives up to the spoiled-child stereotype," Tony said.

"Aren't _you_ an only child, DiNozzo?" Kate asked with a smile.

"Sure, but I give it class," Tony said.

Gibbs raised his eyebrow at both of them and they got back to work, quickly.

The house had three bedrooms, two baths, but none were large by any means. One room seemed to belong to Sheriff Drake's son. It was fairly clean, the bed made, clothes off the floor. That made it easier to go through it quickly and move on. The second bedroom was set up as an office. There was a desktop computer, printer, scanner, the works, set up on a large desk. Kate sat down to look at what might be on it. Their warrant specifically included electronics, given the nature of the crimes they were investigating.

"Here's the computer, Gibbs," Kate called.

Tony came into the room.

"Ah, nice. If there's anything to find, it'll probably be on his computer. It's not in his bedroom...at least, not so far."

"Yeah, that figures. If he kept all the photos in the shed, there's no reason to expect to see copies anywhere else here...unless they're digital. I can only hope," Kate said. "I want to take this guy down."

"As long as you don't say that you want to take him out...in any sense of the word," Tony said.

Kate rolled her eyes and went back to work. Tony could make anything sound bad.

"Hey, Kate."

She paused. Tony's tone had changed.

"What?"

"We need to think of some way to fix Tim's life."

 _That_ was a surprise. She turned around and looked at him.

"What?"

"When I ran into him earlier. He doesn't think anything is going to change. He doesn't think there's any way his life can get better. We can't leave him like this."

"Tony, are you feeling okay?" Kate asked.

"I'm serious, Kate."

"I know. That's what's surprising me," she said, smiling a little, but then, she got serious, too. "I know that Rachel doesn't want to leave it without doing something more for him. She told me that she would try to get him to keep talking to her."

"I don't think that's enough," Tony said. "Just talking isn't going to change anything for him."

"It'll do something, but you're right that it can't just be that. What are you thinking we do?"

"I don't know. That's why I was asking you."

"Maybe tonight we can ask Rachel what she thinks and get something figured out. For now, I'd better get back to work or Gibbs might start head-slapping _me_."

Tony grinned.

"We can't have that, now can we."

"Nope...but I won't forget about Tim, either."

Tony nodded and headed back to his investigation of the house. Kate started looking through the sheriff's computer, but her mind had turned back to Tim. He could very easily be lost in the shuffle of the investigation. He was no longer the focus because they didn't think that he was guilty. Sheriff Drake was seeming more and more guilty. If they didn't keep him in mind, he could be forgotten.

She turned her attention back on the computer. The real question was whether or not there would be something incriminating here and if it was here, where it would be. Would Sheriff Drake have been worried about his son finding whatever he had? Probably not. If Alan Drake was only living here temporarily, he would likely have his own computer and no use for his dad's desktop.

Kate knew that she wasn't a computer expert, but she didn't think Sheriff Drake was, either. So if there _was_ something to find here, it shouldn't be too hard to find. She started searching through the hard drive. It didn't appear that Sheriff Drake was much of a computer nut. She didn't see any games beyond the simple games that came standard with pretty much any computer.

And then, she hit pay dirt.

"Gibbs! I found them!"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Ducky was trying _not_ to worry. He had been surprised to find that Tim had actually left him a note saying that he was going to the river. It had been all he could do _not_ to drive to the river and make sure that Tim was okay. Perhaps it was an overreaction. After all, it wasn't as though Tim was really any relation of his.

But Tim didn't have anyone else to worry about him, and maybe someone like Ducky would be better than no one.

The door opened and Ducky walked out to the front of the house, trying not to seem to be hurrying. Tim was just coming into the house, looking uninjured (or at least no more injured than he had been), albeit a bit perplexed.

"Timothy?"

Tim looked at him with a strange expression on his face. Ducky didn't even know what emotion it was. He said nothing. It was like he was waiting for something.

"I saw your note. Thank you for letting me know."

"You cared?"

"Of course." Ducky didn't ask him why he wasn't sure.

Tim walked by him and sat on the couch. He looked at Ducky as if he was trying to understand something very complicated.

"What is it, lad?"

Ducky sat down beside him.

"Did I miss out on something?" Tim asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I was at the river...drawing. Alan came and... but that Agent DiNozzo stopped him and he said that he wanted to help me...not with the investigation, just...just me. He said that he didn't want to leave me like I am, that it would be wrong. He didn't even know I existed a few days ago and suddenly, he wants to help and he says the other agents want to help, too." Tim took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Is there a life that I missed, something I could have had that was...better than this? Could I have been a different person?"

"A different person? I don't know. I believe that we are born with traits that aren't learned. They're simply a part of us...but how your life has gone is _not_ the way it had to. Timothy, you are full to the brim with potential. You don't have to accept this life you have."

"I can't see anything else," Tim said.

"To an extent, I do understand that, but I hope you'll keep trying. There are people who want to help you. They expect nothing in return. This is not the life you've had, but it _can_ be the life you _will_ live, if you let it be, if you try to get to that point."

"How do I do that, though? What do you do to have a different life? I don't...I don't even know how that could be possible."

"You let others help you," Ducky said. "Those of us who _can_ see that it's possible."

"But I'm so screwed up."

"That's why you need help and you can get it."

Ducky had no idea why Tim was even considering the idea, but he was more than willing to push the idea that more was possible.

"Timothy, you have a chance, here. Don't give it up."

"But...it doesn't change what happened. It doesn't change who I am, and I don't like thinking about it, talking about it...and people keep telling me that I need to. I don't _want_ to!"

"But has avoiding it for all these years made anything better?"

"No."

"Maybe trying something else will help. It's not going to be easy. I can even see that it would be painful for you, but sometimes, pain is necessary for healing."

"Hasn't there been enough already?"

Ducky smiled. "No, because it hasn't been the right kind of pain."

Tim sighed, and Ducky just patted him on the shoulder.

"It's not a decision you have to make right away, but you shouldn't ignore it because you can't put it off forever and expect to fix anything."

Tim nodded but said nothing else. He just sat on the couch and furrowed his brow, thinking. Ducky left him to it, hoping that it would lead to something productive.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"No way, man. If you want to take on McGee, that's your business, but I'm not helping you go after Ducky, too. He hasn't done anything wrong."

"He's protecting the freak! What more do you want?" Alan demanded. He could see a distinct lack of enthusiasm from his friend. In the past, Paul had always been part of Alan's plans, but now, he was strangely reluctant and Alan didn't like that.

"Ducky's not guilty of anything but being a softy and he'd do the same thing for anyone in town," Paul said.

"The freak got my dad arrested!"

"I know but..."

Alan began fuming.

"You think my dad's guilty, don't you."

"Heck, I don't know, but these guys from out of town...they don't have any reason to be going after your dad. Maybe, you should just wait and see what happens."

"You're saying no," Alan said.

"Alan, I just got married a month ago. I'm still trying to figure out all the ins and outs of running the grocery store since Mary's dad turned it over to me. I have a life, man. I can't..."

"You're saying no," Alan repeated.

Paul sighed. "I'm saying no, Alan. And if you're going after Ducky, everyone else is going to say no, too. He's an old man!"

Paul stood up and walked out of the diner, leaving Alan behind, furious at being rejected. Well, if no one else would be on his side, Alan knew that he could manage it on his own. He remembered his grandfather telling him stories about making Molotov cocktails during the war. They were simple to make, and he was pretty sure he could do it himself.

He stood up, dropped some bills on the table and stalked out. It would take some time to prepare, and he wasn't willing to wait. Without Tim around to remind people of what had gone on and Ducky to make waves, the state people would be gone.

And Tim would pay for bringing trouble for Alan. He'd have made him pay this morning if that agent hadn't shown up. He couldn't get to Tim unless he took the battle directly to him.

Tim was going to pay and if Ducky didn't get out of the way, he would, too.


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25**

Abby was getting as much information on Sheriff Alan Drake as she could. Knowing what he'd tried to do to Stan and what he may have done to Mary and what he _did_ do to Tim, she was determined to get everything. No secrets would be buried deeply enough to escape her notice.

So far, however, there didn't appear to be _any_ secrets. If Sheriff Drake had a criminal past beyond what they now suspected, it hadn't left any trail.

"But that doesn't matter," Abby said aloud. "I will figure this out, and even if I can't, Gibbs will when he hears everything I've found."

Determined, Abby returned to her searches, compiling everything she could about the Drakes and anyone connected with them.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"What do you got, Kate?" Gibbs asked.

"Photos. Lots of them," Kate said.

She clicked on an icon and Gibbs leaned over to see what she had found.

"I don't know if this is all of them, but there are a _lot_ of photos, here, Gibbs. And look at this."

Gibbs looked. Photos of Mary, yes, but there were other photos, too. Kate stopped on one.

"Isn't this Margaret McGee?" Kate asked.

"Looks like it."

The photo was of Margaret McGee walking down the road. She didn't appear to be aware of the camera. She looked tired and unhappy. Her dress was worn but clean, and her hair was long and curly, much like Mary's was.

"He was watching her, too. Some of these are older, maybe even scanned in. Sheriff Drake was watching Tim McGee's mother."

"He said he didn't like him," Tony said, leaning over Kate's other shoulder.

"You think Tim knew?" Kate asked, sounding skeptical.

"I don't know if he knew, but he never liked the sheriff. He was really open about that."

Gibbs considered what he was seeing here. Ducky was very firm that Margaret McGee had died of an aneurysm. No question of Sheriff Drake having killed her. That didn't mean he hadn't been watching her before, though.

"Anyone else?" Tony asked.

"I don't know. Not so far. Just Mary and Margaret."

"All right. Pack it up. Abby'll check it when we get back. We need to see what she's found, too."

"What about tonight, Boss?" Tony asked.

"Yeah, are we leaving?" Kate asked.

"The sheriff is gone, and Stan will be on duty. Morrow's sent another team to be here. We'll be back first thing in the morning."

Even as he said it, though, Gibbs wasn't sure he liked it. Still, they did need to get back and see what Abby had found. They needed to get everything figured out that they could, but at the same time, he didn't like leaving Hazard. Both Stan and the younger officer, Ned Dorneget, had said they didn't think anything would happen, but still, it only took one person to make them wrong.

"Rachel has to get back," Kate said. "She has other clients, but she'll be coming back tomorrow, too."

"I don't know," Tony said. "It kind of feels like we're abandoning him."

"We're not," Gibbs said.

That was the end of it, but he could see that no one was happy about it. Everything felt too unfinished. Something more needed to happen before this was _over_. He just didn't know what that would be. He wouldn't put it past Alan to make some trouble for Tim later, but he'd already seen that Tim had a protector. All in all, he just didn't know what more needed to happen, but for now, they did need to find out what Abby had discovered and see where they would go from here.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim sat on the couch for most of the day, thinking. He was vaguely aware of movement around him, of Ducky and Rachel being in and out, but mostly, he was thinking. He was thinking about what Ducky had said to him. He was thinking about what Tony had said. He was thinking about what had happened, yesterday.

As awful as it had all been, this had given him a glimpse of a different world, a much better world. One that had good people in it who actually cared about him. There had been times when he had questioned whether or not even his mother had cared in any significant way.

But now, there were people who said they wanted things to be better for him than they had been. No one had ever said that before...except for Mary.

And Mary had betrayed him, too. He couldn't reconcile the feelings he had for her, the desire to be with her and the anger at what she had done. Part of him thought that he should just accept that Mary might have liked Alan, even though Tim himself hated him. The louder part insisted that what she had done was _wrong_ and that she had betrayed him and then tried to take it back.

It was too much like his mother had been.

"Tim?"

He hated that he couldn't figure out how to manage those conflicting emotions.

"Tim?"

Mary had been a little bit of light, but now, that light was gone, and he was left with only confusion.

"Tim, can you hear me?"

There was a hand on his shoulder and he was startled. He jumped a little and looked up at Rachel who was looking at him sympathetically.

"You look like you're thinking deep thoughts," she said.

There was that passing resemblance to his mother that Tim couldn't avoid noticing when he looked at Rachel. In reality, they looked nothing alike, but something made him think of his mother whenever he saw her.

"Bitter, maybe, not deep," he said and looked away.

"What is it, Tim?"

"Nothing that you can fix."

Rachel smiled. "My job isn't to fix things for you. It's to help you fix yourself."

Tim just shook his head. Trying to put words to all the conflicting emotions he felt right now was too much, too hard, too difficult for him to manage.

"I'm going home tonight, but if you don't object, I'd like to come back tomorrow."

"The case is over, isn't it?"

"Hardly, but even if it was, I'd want to keep helping you."

"Why? I'm a hopeless case," Tim said.

"No, you're not, and that's why I'd like to keep it up as long as you'll allow it."

"Won't be any easier, will it."

"Not for a while, no."

Tim did appreciate that Rachel was honest with him, at least. Some things were so hard for him to think about, and she didn't try to pretend that they'd suddenly be easy.

"Will you let me, Tim?"

"Yeah."

"Good." She pulled out a card and handed it to him. "If you need to talk, you can reach me at this number."

Tim looked at the card, surprised that she'd open up a line of communication like that.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked.

"Positive. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Okay."

Rachel left, and Tim looked at the card for a long time before finally getting off the couch.

He went into the kitchen where Ducky was making dinner.

"I hope you're hungry, Timothy, because I've made enough to feed an army," Ducky said, not looking up. "I've never been very good at figuring out how much dry pasta makes the right amount of cooked pasta."

"A quarter," Tim said, without thinking.

Ducky looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"A quarter. You take a quarter and use as much spaghetti as fits in the area that the quarter takes up. That's supposed to be one serving."

"Really."

"Yeah, but Mom and I usually made less than that. It's not expensive, but that is a big serving."

Ducky smiled. "I will certainly keep that in mind for the next time. However, this time, there will be quite a bit extra."

Tim ventured a smile, too. "I won't eat it all."

"I won't insist. Have a seat."

Tim sat down and ate dinner with Ducky. It wasn't a normal occurrence for him, but it was better than normal.

It was wonderful and, for the first time in years, Tim tried to let himself enjoy it.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"All right. Talk to me, Abbs," Gibbs said.

"Okay. So Sheriff Alan Drake, Senior, is from Hazard. His parents moved to Hazard back in the fifties. His dad was the sheriff, Jonathan Drake. Mom was Janene Chandler. He's worked for the police department for 30 years. His wife, Sally, was from Omaha. She died when Alan Drake, Junior, was six."

"How?" Tony asked.

"Complications due to diabetes."

"And then, a year or two later, he's taking pictures of Margaret McGee," Kate said.

"And then, a few years after that, he's taking pictures of Mary Fields. Lots of them," Tony added. "Any signs of why?"

"Not in his records. The guy has nothing. No reprimands, no traffic tickets, no criminal record. Honestly, guys, if you looked at his background, you'd never think he'd be the kind of guy to commit murder."

"Just because he doesn't have a record doesn't mean he's never done anything wrong," Gibbs said. "What about his son?"

"Alan Drake, Junior, is another story," Abby said. "He's had plenty of speeding tickets, reckless driving, but he's interested enough in school to get pretty good grades. Not enough for full funding in grad school, but pretty good."

"Never lost his license?"

Abby shook her head. "Nope. Maybe his sheriff daddy smoothed the way for him."

"Since he was doing that this time, too, that makes sense," Tony said.

"And Alan got his way with Mary Fields because he threatened to bring his dad down on Tim," Kate added. "Whether he was serious or not, Mary _thought_ it was possible. So Sheriff Drake has not shown himself as someone who puts the law first if he has a personal interest."

They were all quiet for a few seconds. Then, Tony sighed.

"In reality, what have we really got on him? We have him for assault on Tim and attempted murder of Stan. We have him for _stalking_ Mary Fields, at least, but we don't have anything to tie him to the murder. Not directly."

"We have a pattern of violent behavior. We have obsession," Kate said.

"But that's circumstantial," Tony said. "We have reasons why he attacked Tim and why he tried to kill Stan. Why kill Mary? We don't even know what triggered his obsession with Margaret McGee, and we _know_ he didn't kill her."

"Okay, I have a hinky idea," Abby said, suddenly.

"What?"

"We never knew _why_ Margaret McGee moved to Hazard. There was nothing to explain her decision to move _there_ as opposed to anywhere else. Tim has never said he knew why. She has no ties to the town. She wasn't moving there for a job, even if she had one, later. So why would she come to a little town like that and hope there was a job available? A big city would be a much better option and probably an easier place to hide, if it came down to that."

"What are you getting at, Abby?" Kate asked.

"What if Sheriff Drake knew her already? What if _that's_ why she went there?"

"Knew her? How?" Tony asked. "She's not from Hazard. And he never left."

"He never _moved_ anywhere else, but that doesn't mean he has to be there _all_ the time," Abby said. "And we know that Margaret McGee was earning a living through prostitution for a while."

"You think that Sheriff Drake was one of her clients?" Kate asked.

"I don't know. But think about it. One of the things we know about Tim is how much he hated the sheriff when he was little, even though he never could exactly explain what triggered it. We know that the sheriff hated Tim, too, from the time Tim was a little boy and would really have no reason to cause that kind of feeling."

"I see where you're going with this," Tony said. "You're thinking that Margaret McGee moved to Hazard to be Sheriff Drake's private prostitute, and when Tim had so much trouble, she ended it, meaning that he lost his access to her...except through stalking, obviously."

Abby nodded. "Then, after a while, when she dies and Mary comes back to Hazard, he has someone else."

"And I already noticed the vague resemblance," Kate said. "...but how can we prove that? If Tim knew that himself, he would have said something...at least to us."

"There's got to be some kind of a record somewhere," Tony said. "This idea makes so much sense."

"Doesn't mean it's right," Gibbs said.

"I still think we should look into it, Boss," Tony said. "We missed Tim's sketchpad the first time we went to the house. Maybe we missed something else."

Gibbs gave the possibility consideration. It was true that this would explain a lot that they couldn't yet explain about what had happened, but the plain fact of the matter was that they had no evidence for it. Not yet. And without evidence, all they had was a story. A good story, but just a story.

Still, if there was something to it, there would have to be a trail somewhere. No one was perfect.

Then, an idea came to him.

"Tomorrow, we'll check the house again. Tonight, go home and get some sleep."

They all nodded and prepared to go. After they were gone, Gibbs pulled out his phone and made a call.

"I need you to pull an old file for me. From twenty years ago. A woman was arrested for prostitution. I want to know if she gave any names. She was booked as Maggie Millet. Real name, Margaret McGee."

Then, all he could do was wait, and he hoped that this would pan out. Until they solved Mary Fields' murder, it felt like anything could happen.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Alan looked at his work. He was ready. All he needed was darkness. He knew that he couldn't get caught. A few of the state people were still around, and he didn't trust Nerdy Ned or Stan to look the other way. Stan had accused Alan's dad of attacking him, and while that infuriated Alan, too, he could at least acknowledge that Stan might have been mistaken after his head injury. Besides, no one would care if Tim got hurt. They'd care about Stan.

He'd made four of the Molotov cocktails. That should be enough. It would accommodate the possibility of missing on the first try. He looked out the window of his truck. He'd driven a few miles out of Hazard to make sure he didn't have any witnesses. He hadn't really wanted to come back here. Hazard was dull, boring, and he had been happy to get away. Coming back was simply practical, not desirable, but he wasn't going to let the town freak destroy his father.

He waited until it was full dark. Then, he started his truck and headed back toward Hazard. He was ready.


	26. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26**

After dinner, Tim went back to the couch. He pulled out the drawing he'd started, and then, he pulled out the family photo and Rachel's card. Mary, the woman he'd lost. The family he'd lost. The offer to gain something he'd never had. He set them side by side and stared at them for hours, long after Ducky went to bed.

Which was the reality?

Which was his life?

He didn't know, but maybe there was time to...

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the breaking glass.

He had just enough time to see something fly through the air before it crashed on the floor.

...and a fire started.

It was as though the fire was flowing like a river. All Tim could think about was that it was fire.

Again.

There was another crash.

Then, he heard one more crash and shout of pain.

Ducky!

He turned toward the bedroom but, for a moment, he couldn't move toward it. He couldn't make himself walk to the bedroom and see more death. His father had died in a bedroom. His mother had died in a bedroom. That was what bedrooms were. Portals to death.

Flames leapt up around him and the door to Ducky's room opened.

Ducky staggered out into the living room, trying to stem the flow of blood from a deep gash on the side of his head.

"Timothy..."

That was all he said and then, he fell to the floor, his eyes closing.

Still, Tim stood there, frozen in place, unable to do anything except stare at another death.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"That was a bust," Agent Saunders said as they headed back around the block. "That person isn't going after McGee."

"I'm glad it was," Agent Weaver replied. "I hope this is the most boring night I ever have. Excitement will only mean violence."

"Yeah, I know. I just keep feeling like something is going to happen, and I just want to get it over with."

"I know what you mean. I feel it, too."

As they came around the corner, they saw a pickup parked in front of Ducky's home and a person standing on the sidewalk beside it. Before they could do more than take that in, the person starting throwing objects at the house. The first one broke a window and flames began to leap up inside.

"He's starting the house on fire!" Agent Weaver said. "Run!"

Agent Saunders nodded and they both started to sprint toward the house. The person threw three more of the objects. One landed on the lawn, but the other two made it inside.

"Stop where you are!"

The person turned and saw them, jumped into the pickup and sped away.

"Did you get the license plate?" Agent Weaver asked.

"No, but I got make and model."

That would have to do, but for now, it was more important to get the fire stopped and make sure no one had been hurt.

"Call the fire department! Hurry!"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

He could feel the heat from the fire all around him.

 _Run._

He didn't know where the thought had come from, but he shook himself. He didn't have to stand here. He didn't have to let it happen.

 _You're not a child, not this time._

Again, the thought seemed like it was coming from someone else, but Tim nodded to himself. He picked up the photo, the card and his sketchpad. Then, he ran over to where Ducky was on the floor. He stuffed the sketchpad into his shirt in order to free up his hands. He knelt down and grabbed Ducky by the shoulders. He didn't speak. He barely thought. He just grabbed the body of the only person left in the town who had believed him and dragged him out of the house onto the grass in the front yard. Then, he ran back into the house, through the kitchen, out to the back where Ducky had a hose. He turned it on and started to spray it inside where the fire was hottest.

All he could think about was getting rid of the fire.

No more fire.

No more fire.

He vaguely noticed sirens outside, but his focus was all on the flames, on getting rid of them, portals to death that they were.

From a long way away, he heard a voice saying his name, but he couldn't tell what was being said.

Then, someone was yanking on his arm, pulling him out.

"The fire truck is here, Tim! It's time to get out!"

He resisted. He had to put out the fire!

"Tim! Listen to me! You've done your part. It's time to leave the house!"

Tim didn't want to go, but that hand on his arm was too strong. He was pulled out of Ducky's house, to the grass in the yard. He vaguely noticed Ducky being taken away, and it came to him that yet another person had died because of him. This time, because he wouldn't leave Hazard.

As if the fire from the house leapt into his brain, he couldn't think through that one thought.

 _Ducky would have lived if I hadn't been here._

He pulled away from the hands on his arms and started to run toward the river.

Only this time, he wouldn't stop there.

He was going to leave Hazard. It was the only way to stop the death.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The ringing phone woke Gibbs up and he was alert almost instantly.

"Gibbs."

" _Boss, it's Stan."_

"What happened?" Gibbs asked, knowing that Stan would only be calling with bad news.

" _Someone set fire to Ducky's house tonight."_

"Who?"

" _Based on the description Agent Saunders gave, I'd say it was the sheriff's son."_

"Where were Agent Saunders and Agent Weaver?" Gibbs demanded. "We had them there for a reason!"

" _Checking out someone who had looked suspicious. They were only gone for a few minutes. When they were heading back, they saw the person throwing something...probably Molotovs at the house. One of them didn't ignite, but the other three did."_

"And?"

" _And Ducky's in the hospital. Don't know how bad it was. I didn't see him. Tim ran off after, and I've been swamped here. I'm assuming he went back to the river. That's his go-to place, usually. I was going to check on him after I got things under control. I'm sorry, Boss. I really thought things were starting to calm down. Most of the people in town were accepting of it. Wait a second. Boss, I'll call you back. I need to..."_

"Don't bother. I'm on my way."

" _See you here, then. Hey! Paul! Stop right there!"_

Then, Stan hung up. Gibbs sat for a moment, regretting that Tim had been confronted with yet another fire. This would have unbalanced him, Gibbs was sure. Could it have been prevented? Maybe. Maybe not. Impossible to know, now. All they could do was pick up the pieces. He looked at the clock. Almost four a.m.

He called Tony and Kate and got them moving. Maybe it wasn't completely necessary to have them there, but at least, Tim would have people on hand who were on his side. Hopefully, it would help.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Stan caught sight of one of Alan's old cronies hovering in the crowd.

"Hey! Paul! Stop right there!"

He hung up his phone, knowing Gibbs wouldn't take offense and hurried over to where Paul was standing, clearly wondering if he should run or stay where he was.

"What, Stan?"

"What are you doing here?"

Paul shrugged. "Gawking. Like everyone else is."

"Don't give me that crap, Paul," Stan said. "You live on the north side of town. There's no reason for you to be over here at four in the morning, especially since I don't see Shelly with you. What are you doing here?"

Paul looked shifty.

"Did _you_ do this?"

"No! No way, Stan. I would _never_ attack Ducky."

"Then, why?"

"I... Alan... he asked me to help him get back at McGee for getting his dad arrested."

"Get back at him? How?"

"He didn't say. I knew that Tim was here. Everyone knows that, and I told him no. I told him that I wasn't going to help him with anything that might hurt Ducky, too."

"That's it? You just said no?"

"Yeah. I said no and I walked away. I've got too many things going for me, now. I wasn't willing to risk getting involved in something like that, not anymore. I wasn't interested in what he might want to do. I thought that, since he'd gone away for school and all, he might have changed, but he hasn't, Stan. He still can't stand the idea that he's not top dog. I heard the siren from the fire truck, and I was afraid that maybe Alan had gone through with whatever he wanted to do. I told Shelly where I was going. That's why I'm here."

"You think it was him?" Stan asked.

"Yeah. I do. I hope I'm wrong, but no one else would go after Ducky like this. You know that. Heck, even the people who burned down the McGee house did it while he wasn't in it. They didn't want to physically hurt him and that wasn't me, either. But we're just not that way, here...except for Alan."

"Yeah." Stan sighed. "When we get through all this mess, you're going to have to make a statement about that, Paul. You got that?"

"Yeah. I understand. Stan, will I be charged with anything? I really didn't know what he was going to do. If I had..."

"No, Paul. You won't be. You didn't help him and you didn't hide what you knew. That keeps you from being an accessory. You're just a witness."

"Okay. Can I go home?"

"Go ahead. You have to get to the store soon, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I can be late one day. Just don't tell Mr. Fields I said that. He might decide to take it back. I still can't believe that the store is mine, some days."

Stan smiled a little and gestured for Paul to leave. He turned and looked at Ducky's house. The fire was out, now. Thanks to Tim's quick reaction, while there would be a lot of water damage, it didn't look like the fire had damaged the structure of the house, only some of the interior furnishings. Ducky might lose some knickknacks, but he'd still have his home. It was nothing like what had happened to Tim, because people had cared enough to stop it before it got out of control.

But neither event _should_ have happened at all, and Stan was determined to have this be the end of it. He didn't care what it took. People were going to be forced to see what they were turning into.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim knelt in the mud by the river and rubbed water on his face, trying to clean off any soot that might have lingered from the fire. He wanted every trace of it gone, nothing left of the fire. Then, he pulled out the picture of his family, tore it into pieces and threw it into the river. He pulled out the card Rachel had given him, tore that into pieces and threw it into the river, as well. Finally, he picked up the sketchpad, ready to throw it into the river, too, but then, he stopped.

He leaned back on the riverbank and opened it up to the page with the first drawing he'd made of Mary. It was dark, but he knew the picture so well that he didn't need to see it. He couldn't throw that away. He couldn't throw Mary into the river. That was where she had ended up.

Carefully, he removed the page from the sketchpad. He turned to the last page, the drawing he hadn't finished and he removed that, too. Then, he looked at the sketchpad, stood up and threw it as hard as he could into the river. All those monsters he had drawn. Maybe that would finally put out the fires.

With a deep breath, he folded up the two pages and shoved them into his pocket. Then, he started walking away.

Away from the river, away from Hazard, away from fire and death.

As he walked by the sign marking the Hazard city limits, he realized that he hadn't passed by the sign in 20 years, not since he'd first come. He hadn't even remembered that there _was_ a sign. He had no idea what there was in the rest of the world, but that didn't matter.

Now, he was leaving. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't care. Just away.

With that one thought in mind, he started to run.


	27. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27**

It was after five a.m. before Gibbs managed to get back to Hazard with Tony and Kate in tow. Even rushing, it took time. The one thing that made him feel better about it was that Stan was clearly on the case and he wasn't slacking.

They went to Ducky's house, first, to see the damage.

"Well, it's still standing," Tony said. "I don't see much damage on the outside."

"Yeah, I wonder how much is inside," Kate said.

They walked toward the house just as the front door opened and Stan came out. He looked very tired and still a little worn, but he smiled when he saw them.

"Hey, Gibbs. I'm glad you're here."

"How bad is it?" Gibbs asked.

"Could have been worse. Three windows are broken, some of the furniture is a writeoff, and there's a lot of water damage from putting out the fires, but overall, it's a lot better than it could have been."

"How's Ducky?" Tony asked.

"He'll be all right. We think he got hit in the head with the pieces of one of the bottles. It knocked him out and he's got more than a few stitches, but Tim got him out of the house really fast and so, he should pull through fine."

"Where _is_ Tim?" Kate asked, looking around.

Stan sighed again. "I don't know. He ran off after the fire. I thought he'd go to the river, but I didn't see him there when I went by a few minutes ago. He hasn't ever come back here, and I checked with the hospital. He never went there, either. I haven't had time to look for him, but I am a little worried."

"What about the person who started the fire?"

"Alan Drake, Junior."

"Really?"

"Best guess, so far. One of his old high school friends said it was probably him. Make and model match his truck. The problem is that I haven't seen him, yet, either. I've got..."

He broke off when his phone started ringing. He looked at Gibbs and then answered it.

"Deputy Burley. Agent Weaver...what..." Stan looked at them. "Apparently, Alan just pulled up to his house. I don't know what he's thinking, unless he's assuming he'll get away with it because Tim's involved, but he's forgetting how much people respect Ducky. They're ready to arrest him. You want to be there?"

Gibbs considered it. It would be extremely satisfying to see Alan Drake taken down, but in the end, it didn't matter if they were there or not. He would be arrested with or without them, and that was the important thing. He shook his head.

"No. Just get him."

Stan nodded.

"Get him and take him to the station. Thanks."

He hung up.

"Okay, what do you guys want to do? I'm going to be tied up with this for a while longer and then, I'm going to crash for a few hours. I've got Ned at the station, and a couple of the officers on patrol, making sure that no one else gets it into their heads to do anything stupid."

"You need any help, Stan?" Gibbs asked.

"No. I don't think so. Now that we've got Alan in custody, we just have to deal with cleanup. We'll collect the bottle pieces to see if we can get any fingerprints off the ones that didn't burn. Whatever you want to do is fine with me."

"We'll check with Ducky and then look for Tim," Gibbs said.

"Thanks, Boss. He was in the house, trying to put out the fire with a garden hose, and I saw the expression on his face. I can't believe even someone as arrogant as Alan would have the gall to attack him this way again. When you find him, let me know, okay?"

"Will do."

Stan went back to work, and Gibbs took Tony and Kate and headed for the hospital.

The Hazard hospital was barely more than a clinic. The building was small, and there were only two doctors, one surgeon and five nurses on staff. For a town the size of Hazard, it was adequate, but anything complicated would require a trip to the capital.

They were directed to one of the rooms and Gibbs knocked.

"Come in."

They walked in, and got their first good look at Ducky. He looked all right, thankfully. There was a long line of stitches on one side of his head, accompanied by some serious bruising, but he smiled when he saw them all there, although there was a bit of a glazed look in his eyes.

"Good morning, Agent Gibbs. I wish I could be greeting you in better circumstances. I hope you don't mind if I stay where I am? I'm afraid that I'm not fully stable as yet. Please, have a seat."

They all sat down.

"How are you feeling, Ducky?" Tony asked.

"Like I was hit in the head with a bottle, but I'm just grateful that I'm alive to feel the ache. It could have been much worse."

"What do you remember?"

"Not much, I'm afraid. I went to bed and then, I woke up when I heard breaking glass. I stood, wanting to find out what was going on, and the next thing I knew I was here in the hospital. I have a serious headache and a wound that I'm too old to show off to the ladies as evidence of my wild nature."

Kate chuckled. "I don't think you need it."

"Perhaps not. How much of my house survived the flames?"

"From what we can tell, most of it did. You'll be replacing some furniture, maybe some new floors, but the structure is fine."

"Really? How was I so fortunate?"

"Stan said that Tim was trying to put out the fire before the fire engine got there."

"That's wonderful. How is Timothy taking it? He told me about his father dying in a fire. Given his past, I would think what happened would be frightening to him."

"We don't know, Dr. Mallard," Gibbs said.

"He's not talking?"

"He's not here," Tony said. "Stan hasn't seen him since the fire. He said that he wasn't at the river and he hasn't come back to your house, either. Do you have any idea where else he might go?"

Ducky looked very concerned. "I don't...perhaps to his own home? That's the only option I can think of. Are you going to find him?"

"We're going to try," Kate said.

"Good. Please, when you find him, let me know that he's all right."

"Of course."

"Thank you. Now, worried or not, I must confess that I'm feeling very tired."

"We'll let you sleep," Gibbs said.

Ducky nodded and closed his eyes. In moments, he was asleep. Gibbs gestured and they left.

"What now, Boss?"

"First, we go to his place."

"Would he really go back there, though?" Kate asked. "He hasn't shown any interest in seeing his house in the time we've been here."

"Don't know," Gibbs said.

"And when he's not there?"

"You two are going to look around."

"Look around the house or look around the town?" Tony asked.

"Both."

"And what will _you_ be doing, Gibbs?" Kate asked.

"Driving."

When they got to Tim's house, they could see that no one had been there and the place was empty. Gibbs pulled over and let Kate and Tony out.

"Stay together," he said.

"Right, Boss."

Then, Gibbs drove away, hoping that they'd find Tim with no problem. Unfortunately, Tim had rarely acted in a way that they'd been able to anticipate. He was almost always unexpected.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim left the road and walked down to the river. He sat down on the bank to rest. Since he had no end goal, no destination, it didn't matter how long he rested. In fact, the adrenaline that had been coursing through him for the last few hours was now fading, leaving him feeling exhausted.

Now that the sun was up, he felt warmer. He lay back and stared at the sky.

He hated knowing that Ducky was dead, that if he had not been there, Ducky would still be alive.

However, Tim also knew that there was never any way to fix that kind of thing. It had happened and it could never be changed. Mistakes couldn't be fixed or changed. All he could do was make sure that it never happened again.

Since there was no one alive who would care about him, about what happened to him or about what he did, Tim felt secure in closing his eyes and trying to get a little bit of sleep.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"How much time do you want to spend looking for something that probably isn't here?" Kate asked.

Tony smiled. "As long as it takes for Gibbs not to be irritated that we gave up too soon."

"Okay." Kate sighed as she looked at the house. "This place depresses me. No one died here, but it's like they were determined to destroy as much as they could. This is Tim's life."

"Doesn't have to stay that way," Tony said. "Come on. Let's get started."

Kate nodded and they climbed into the house, ducking under the police tape and heading for the bedroom. Because of the state of the rest of the house, it seemed impossible that anything could have survived anywhere else in the house.

They began searching for anything that might give Margaret McGee a voice years after her death. She remained an enigma for them. There were bare-bones facts that they had about her. There was the growing certainty that she had killed her ex-husband and his girlfriend. There was her apparent need to support herself and Tim by becoming a prostitute...unless that had been going on before. Then, there was her decision to come to Hazard. Was Abby right? It was a possibility.

The problem was that the only person left alive who _might_ be able to shed some light on her was currently missing and, even if he had been present, getting answers from him might be nearly impossible.

After an hour, they called it quits and started to walk through the town, hoping for some sign of Tim. By unspoken consent, they headed to the river, first. Just because Stan hadn't seen him there before didn't mean that he couldn't have gone at a later time.

They started walking up and down the bank, looking for any sign of Tim.

Tony saw it, first.

"Kate! Over here!" he called.

Kate looked up from the small pieces of paper she'd found. Tony was by the bridge where Mary's body had been found and he was holding up something. She stood and ran over to join him.

"It's Tim's sketchpad," Tony said, holding it out.

Kate took it and opened the waterlogged book up. What remained of the drawings was definitely Tim's work.

"It was in the river?"

"Yeah. Wedged by the bridge abutment. I don't see any sign of a body."

Kate acknowledged Tony's thought. As much as Tim had seemed to value this thing, it was worrisome that it was in the river with no sign of Tim around.

"What do you think, Kate?"

"I think that we'd better call Gibbs and tell him what we found. But I _don't_ think we should call Dr. Mallard until we know for sure."

Tony nodded and pulled out his phone.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs had slowly driven up and down every street in Hazard with no sign of Tim anywhere. Actually, there were very few people out and about this morning. He wondered if Alan's actions had finally gone beyond what they could support and they were trying to avoid any association with him.

He was now heading over to the police station to see if Stan could give him any ideas. His phone started ringing right as he pulled up in front of the station.

"Gibbs."

" _Boss, we didn't find anything at the house. I'm calling from the river."_

"You find him?"

" _No. Boss, we found his sketchpad. It was in the water."_

Tony didn't need to say what he was thinking. It was obvious.

"Not him?"

" _Not that we can see, but he_ was _here at some point. What we don't know is if someone else was here with him. He was so attached to this thing. Would he really have thrown it away?"_

"Anything else?"

" _Kate found some scraps of paper, but we don't know if that's significant. She's headed back to pick them up, just in case they're important."_

Gibbs considered. The options weren't all that great at this point, but he refused to assume the worst.

"Keep looking."

" _Will do."_

"And keep the sketchpad."

" _Right, Boss."_

Gibbs hung up and walked into the station. Stan was sitting at a table, looking tired and discouraged, but he smiled when he saw Gibbs coming in.

"Hey, Boss. I was just about to allow myself a few hours of sleep now that Alan has stopped voicing his shock at being arrested. What's up? You find Tim?"

Gibbs shook his head. "No. Any ideas where to look?"

"No. I'm sorry. Honestly, I've barely exchanged ten words with the guy before all this mess."

Gibbs nodded in understanding and thought about it. Everyone was assuming that Tim would never leave. It was interesting, considering how many of them wanted him gone. There was no reason why he might not, now that the truth had come out.

"How many roads out of town are there, besides the one from the capital?" he asked.

Stan leaned back in his chair and thought about it, not bothering to ask why Gibbs cared.

"Let's see... The one you came in on goes all the way through town and out the other side. There are a few roads that go out to pretty much nothing, just fields and farms. Then, there are...two roads that go north, one following the river. Three that go south. Two of those eventually end up in Omaha."

One following the river. That was really the only option.

"Get some sleep, Stan. You may need it."

"You're telling me. But I still want to know when you find him."

Gibbs nodded and left the station. He got in his car and headed for the river. He saw Tony and Kate still on the bank and he left them to their investigations. He didn't know if this would pan out, but he needed to try.


	28. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28**

Tim didn't think he'd slept for very long. The sun didn't appear to have moved much in the sky. That didn't matter. He got up and trudged back to the road. Then, he resumed walking. He didn't know how long the road would follow the river, but he would keep to it as long as he could. If and when the road moved away from the river, he didn't know which one he would follow, but it didn't matter. All that mattered was continuing to walk away from Hazard.

There was no destination. There was only escape.

Most of his life had been an attempt to escape from all the problems. He'd always failed, but it didn't stop him from trying.

This time, he was physically escaping, and maybe the physical escape would help with the rest of it.

If not, well, then, his lot wouldn't have changed.

He kept walking.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Rachel groaned as her phone started ringing. She had hoped to sleep in this morning.

"Not answering it won't make it go away!" David called from the bathroom.

With a sigh, she sat up and reached for her phone. This was a work thing, she knew. It had to be. The question was which patient. She looked at the display and answered quickly.

"Dr. Cranston. What's up, Agent Gibbs?"

" _Tim has gone missing."_

Rachel instantly stood up and started to pull clothes out of her closet. "What happened?"

" _The sheriff's son tried to get revenge. He started Dr. Mallard's house on fire. Dr. Mallard is in the hospital, but Tim ran off after the fire and no one seems to have seen him."_

"He has no one else to seek out, you know. He could just be hiding."

" _No. Kate and Tony found his sketchpad in the river."_

"Oh."

Given Tim's obvious attachment to his drawing, Rachel was worried that they'd found it and not Tim.

" _Any suggestions?"_

"No sign of _him_ in the river?"

" _No."_

"Then, I don't know, Gibbs. I don't have enough context for what he'd do. What are you doing, now?"

" _Heading out of town, seeing if this was enough to drive him away."_

"Nothing else has been, but there's no telling what might be the final straw for him."

" _Can you come?"_

"Of course."

" _Good."_

Gibbs hung up and Rachel sat back down for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts. In reality, she usually tried to take her time when evaluating clients. She had preliminary ideas and some rudimentary conclusions, but she would never have made firm decisions so soon after starting with a patient.

But now, with Tim missing and the one thing he had seemed to treasure abandoned (or stolen, maybe), it seemed more important than ever to figure Tim out.

David sat down and kissed her gently.

"What's wrong?"

"A patient. In Hazard."

"The one that's been monopolizing you the last few days."

"Yeah."

"Good luck."

"Thanks. I think he needs it."

"I'm sure he does. It's a good thing he has you. I'm guessing you'll be taking breakfast to go?"

"Yes. Definitely."

"It'll be on the table for you. I have an early meeting. Let me know if you'll be home tonight."

"I will."

David kissed her once more and headed out of the room. Days like this, Rachel really appreciated how easy-going David was. Being married to her wasn't always the easiest thing in the world, but he took everything in stride.

Quickly, Rachel went into the bathroom to take a shower and get ready to leave. When she got downstairs, there was a mug of coffee and her favorite pastry sitting on the table. She hadn't even realized David had baked yesterday.

"Sneaky," she said with a smile.

Then, she grabbed her breakfast and hurried out.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs was driving slowly down the road. Every so often, he stopped and got out to check by the river. He didn't want to miss Tim if he was there.

After a while, he looked down the road and saw a lone figure. He hadn't seen anyone else on this road. No cars. No people. But there was one, now. He increased his speed a little to catch up. The closer he got, the more it looked like Tim.

He pulled up alongside the walker. It was Tim. He didn't even glance at him. He just kept walking. Quickly, Gibbs stopped the car and got out.

"Tim!"

Tim stopped, turned and looked at him.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Looking for you."

"Why?"

"We were worried."

"Why?" Tim asked, again. "Everyone told me to leave Hazard, even the...the only person who seemed to like me. I've left. Why does it matter?"

He started walking again.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm leaving. I'm not going."

Gibbs understood the difference. He was running _away_ from something, not running _to_ something.

"Tim, stop."

"No."

"Tim, you were never willing to leave before. Why now?"

Tim didn't stop walking and he refused to make eye contact with Gibbs.

"Why, Tim?"

"Because...my staying got someone killed."

Gibbs' brow furrowed.

"Who?"

Tim stopped and turned abruptly toward the river.

"I guess you didn't know. No reason you should have, I guess. I thought someone might have told you, though. Someone came to Ducky's house. Started a fire."

Gibbs was confused. Stan had told him that Tim got Ducky out of the house. Was he really saying that Ducky had died?

"Ducky died?"

"Yes," Tim whispered. "He was in the bedroom. He came out and fell. There was fire and blood all over his head and...I couldn't let him burn."

Tim was almost crying. However, while the tears were in his eyes, they didn't fall.

"If I hadn't been there. I know it was because of me. They like Ducky. They hate me. People have been telling me to leave. I didn't, and Ducky died. So I left. There's no one in Hazard who would care, now. No one anywhere."

"Tim, Ducky's not dead."

Tim looked at him in disbelief.

"No, I saw. His head, the blood and...and he wasn't moving!"

"He got a concussion and stitches, and he's in the hospital in Hazard. I talked to him just a couple of hours ago. He's going to be fine."

"...he's not dead?" Tim asked.

"No."

Tim turned away from Gibbs and walked down to the bank of the river. He sank to the ground and dropped his head into his hands.

"I knew he was dead. I didn't even think to check. There was no other possibility. They all die in there," he said. "Everyone dies in there."

"What do you mean?" Gibbs asked.

Tim's voice was choked as he spoke. "Everyone. That's the place where they die, where they're killed, where they bleed. In there. All the bad things happen in there."

"Tim, what are you talking about?"

"She wanted me to have the bedroom. There was only one in the house. I was supposed to have it, but I wouldn't go in. I never went in there. Never. Not after... I can't go in because that's where people die. She died in there, too. They said she was bleeding inside her head. Bleeding. Ducky came out. He was bleeding. There was fire everywhere! I thought he was dead."

"But you got him out of the house. Stan told me."

"I couldn't let him burn."

Tim was shaking, now. Gibbs could see that this was one of those things that Rachel had said Tim couldn't talk about, coherently. Tim was afraid of going into a bedroom because that was where people died.

Wait, not just died. Killed. He had said killed and it probably wasn't on accident. Gibbs wasn't a shrink. He didn't know what would be best, but he decided to throw caution to the winds and ask.

"Tim, who did you see get killed in a bedroom?"

He thought he knew the answer, but he wanted to be sure.

For a long time, Tim didn't speak. He just sat there, shaking, head in his hands. Gibbs knelt beside him and put a hand on Tim's shoulder.

"Who, Tim?"

"He taught me how to skip rocks. Before he left the last time. He took me to the river and showed me how to make them skip. I showed Mary when she asked me to."

Not directly on topic, but Gibbs was learning to expect that when Tim was dealing with the really hard things. It was a coping mechanism that one might expect to see more often in a child, but Tim had never been able to get beyond what had happened around him as a child. So Gibbs waited, but he kept his hand where it was, hoping that it would serve as a way to keep Tim grounded.

"I've never gone into a bedroom since we came to Hazard. I was afraid. Afraid that I would die, too."

Closer still to what he thought Tim was about to say, and it was worse than he had believed, than Rachel had guessed. It was bad enough that Tim had seen his mother at the house, had known she was there, had drawn the obvious conclusion.

Now...it was looking like he didn't have to draw a conclusion at all. Maybe there had been no guessing at all.

"What did you see, Tim?" he asked, softly. "There's no reason to hide it, now."

"I threw the monster into the river. I wanted the fire to be out. Finally, out all the way. It's always been burning in my head. It never stopped."

"What did you see?" Gibbs asked again, still keeping his voice soft, still keeping his hand on Tim's shoulder. Quietly encouraging Tim to speak.

"I wanted him to come home!" Tim said, his voice cracking just a little. "I wanted him to come home! That would make things better. It would make them right, again. I just wanted to ask him to come home!"

"What happened?"

"She never saw me. I was supposed to be home, in bed, but I couldn't sleep because everything was so wrong." An audible swallow.

"And you wanted to make it right," Gibbs said when Tim didn't continue.

Tim nodded.

"Tell me."

"I went to...to the house. It was all lit up. I watched him with her. He looked happy. I wanted to be happy, too. Why was he happy without us? They turned out the lights and went upstairs. I went inside. I saw her."

Tim stopped again. He wasn't using names, but Gibbs could easily supply them. If Tim could get the story out this way, he wouldn't push for specifics. That could come later. He could still feel Tim shaking. This could be the first time Tim consciously addressed what he had witnessed.

"They were in the bed. Together. She..." He stopped once more and Gibbs wondered if he would be able to go on. "...sh-she hit them. There was...blood. That...sound...and... Blood...couldn't even see the... They stopped moving." Tim stared at the river and reached his hand up to his neck, as if he was searching for something. "Then, the fire. They burned. I don't know if they were dead before, but they were dead after. After the fire. I saw the flames...They would be around the bed, on the bed...moving toward them. I was afraid. I ran away. I ran back home and I hid. I thought I'd be in trouble. I thought she'd..." Tim closed his eyes and dropped his head back into his hands. "She said I was in my room."

And in his confusion, he had been afraid that his own mother might have killed him like she had killed his father if he contradicted her. That one year of Tim's life had piled on hit after hit until Tim really had broken under the strain of it. A seven-year-old boy whose parents divorced, leaving him destitute, confused and hurt at the abandonment. A mother who had turned to prostitution to support herself, something witnessed by the same boy, leading to further confusion. A desire for a return to the way things had been which had led to witnessing the final straw, when Margaret McGee had killed John McGee and his girlfriend.

Tim had witnessed a murder. Not just any murder. He had witnessed the murder of his father by his mother. Then, he had been dragged away from everything he had known and been plopped down in a situation that was no better than it had been, and was, in a lot of ways, much worse.

It was no wonder that he had retreated from that knowledge, never willing to give voice to it, never willing to give it conscious thought. It was no wonder that he had become this strange and disturbed man. All those things never went away, no matter how much he might have tried to make them, and no one had ever realized what he knew. They had simply rejected him because of how he acted.

The wonder was that, in spite of all the chaos and horror of his past, Mary Fields had begun helping Tim heal. Oh, she probably couldn't have done enough on her own to get him through it all, but she had made a start and had done something that no one else had even tried to do. For not the first time, Gibbs felt he would have liked to meet Mary. She must have been a strong, determined and kind woman if she was willing to try to help Tim when he resisted it every step of the way.

And then, she had died, and the hits had started coming at him again.

Where to go from here? Gibbs wasn't sure, but he didn't want to break this moment of confidence by speaking too soon...or by speaking too late. Tim had just told Gibbs something he hadn't told anyone else, and he needed to know that it was okay that he had.

"Tim..." He didn't know what to say, but he knew he had to say _something_. "...I'm sorry that you had to see that."

"Are you?" Tim asked, tonelessly. He lifted his head and stared blankly at the river.

He didn't sound very impressed, but Gibbs was learning that Tim held back his emotions which led to them exploding out when least expected. Instead of letting that happen, Gibbs persisted with what he had said.

"Yes. No one should see what you saw. It was wrong."

Tim looked at him for the first time since he'd started talking.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"You really think that?"

"Yes."

"You really care?"

"Yes."

He was close to tears again...or still. Life appeared in his eyes and he seemed almost human. There was surprise, but a faint glimmer of hope that this was real.

"Why?"

"Because you've gone through things no one should ever have to go through, and you need someone to care."

Tim sniffed a few times and almost smiled. "Thanks...Agent Gibbs. I-I-I never felt like anyone...cared. I didn't...have to care, either. It was miserable, but...easy. Not until...Mary. And she's dead. And then...Ducky. I thought..." He didn't finish, instead looking back at the river and taking deep breaths.

That was one thing Gibbs knew he _could_ help with. Tim could see that Ducky would be all right, and _that_ would be something positive in the midst of all the negatives.

"Tim, come on."

"Where? There's nowhere to go."

"Yes, there is. The hospital in Hazard. You can see that Ducky's all right."

Tim shook his head.

"I don't want them to hurt him again."

"They won't. I promise."

"Don't promise something you can't give. All it does is make things worse."

"I _can_ give that much because you won't be staying there."

That was enough to get Tim to look at him again.

"Where would I go, Agent Gibbs? Nothing's really changed."

"Yes, it has. You're leaving Hazard. For good."

"To do what?"

"Anything. You're going to live, Tim. Maybe for the first time since you were a kid."

"And what does that feel like?" Tim asked, slowly.

"You'll have to find out. Come on."

Gibbs stood up and held out his hand. Tim looked at it for a few seconds and took one more deep breath. He let it out all at once and nodded. He took Gibbs' hand and Gibbs pulled him to his feet.

They walked back to Gibbs' car and Gibbs started them back to Hazard, hoping that he could carry through on what he had promised.


	29. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29**

 _The sky started to reddened as the sun sank lower and lower. Tim was looking at the sky, but then, he turned to Mary and looked at her instead. He was reminded of the way he'd seen her that first day._

" _You're beautiful, Mary," Tim said, suddenly._

 _Mary smiled. "You don't have any real basis for comparison, Tim. Once you get out of Hazard, I'm nothing special."_

" _Yes, you are," Tim said. "You're beautiful."_

 _Mary just shook her head and turned her attention back to the setting sun. As the sky grew darker, a breeze came up and Mary shivered a little. Tim hesitated and then, he took off his old jacket and put it over her shoulders._

 _She reached up and covered his hand with one of her own._

" _Thank you."_

 _For some reason, in that one moment, Tim felt as though Mary was the one who needed protection. He didn't know what it was, but he thought that she seemed like the vulnerable one. It was strange because he'd always felt as though she was stronger because he knew himself to be weak._

 _Tentatively, he left his arm around her shoulders._

 _She didn't move away from him until it was nearly full dark._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim didn't know what to expect. He'd never actually been in the hospital before. For all of his other issues, Tim had rarely been sick enough to warrant a trip to the doctor, and when his mother had died, she had just died. In fact, for a long time, he had wondered what doctors were for. No need for a hospital. No need for doctors. Just more death.

As they returned to Hazard, he felt himself growing more and more tense, afraid that a return to the source of his misery would suck him in and never let him go. It had taken him 20 years to get out, and now, he was still coming back.

"I hate this place," he said, softly. He wasn't sure if Gibbs heard him, but he said it. Most of the time, people didn't seem to care what he might have to say, anyway.

"You won't be here for long, not this time," Gibbs said.

Tim glanced at him and then back out the windshield. He was surprised that Gibbs hadn't asked him any more questions. Thinking about that twisted his stomach. He _never_ thought about it. He avoided it like the plague. In fact, he had been so successful in _not_ thinking about it that he had almost managed to forget why he was always so upset. He didn't know why he had let Gibbs force him to it.

He didn't know if they had been dead when the fire started, but it didn't matter. They had died, and he could see it all in his head if he let himself. The fire, the blood, that moment when...

 _Stop thinking about it. It won't help to think about it._

"You all right, Tim?"

"No," Tim said. "I'm never all right."

"You will be."

He sounded so sure, so confident. Tim wanted to believe Gibbs was right. He just couldn't see how anything could change. Nothing would change the fact that...

 _No. Stop thinking about it._

Gibbs drove them to the hospital, and Tim got out with him, looking around with a bit of fear. Who would come after him next?

He followed Gibbs into the hospital, still tense and unsure. Then, Gibbs knocked on a door and Tim heard a voice.

"Come in!"

He knew that voice. He looked at Gibbs, still skeptical that Ducky had really survived when Tim himself had _known_ he was dead.

Gibbs smiled and opened the door. Tim hovered out in the hallway for a few seconds.

"Agent Gibbs, welcome back. Did you–? Timothy!"

Tim looked up and saw Ducky, lying in a hospital bed.

Alive.

He took a few tentative steps into the room.

"I'm glad to see you, lad. It was quite a night. Agent Gibbs told me that you got me out of the house after the fire started."

"I..." Tim looked down at the floor. "I'm sorry, Ducky."

"Whatever for?"

"You know why that happened. It wasn't because of you. It's because I was there. No one in Hazard would do that to _you_."

"It doesn't matter. That someone was willing to do it at all makes it _his_ fault, not yours. You did nothing to deserve it."

"I didn't have to _do_ anything. I just had to exist."

"Agent Gibbs, could I have a few minutes with Timothy?"

"Of course."

Tim heard Gibbs leave the room, but he didn't look up.

"Timothy, you already have enough sorrow in your life. Don't add this to it. You have the choice. It's not something you _have_ to do. Come and sit down."

Tim walked over and sat on the chair beside Ducky's bed. He still didn't look up, until he felt Ducky's hand on his shoulder.

"I thought you were dead," Tim said in a whisper.

"I wasn't. I'll admit that I myself was frightened by what happened, but I didn't die."

"I left. I really left. I wasn't going to come back. Not ever. No one wants me here. I don't want to be here. I didn't see any reason to stay."

"But you would never leave before. Why not?"

Tim shrugged.

"Why come back?"

"Because...Agent Gibbs said you were alive. Too many people have died already."

"I agree. One was too many."

Tim nodded and stared at the floor again.

"Timothy, please don't take my injury onto yourself. You have so much to deal with as it is. I will be fine. Thanks to you, my injury was minor. I'm only here because they're being cautious. You have a chance to get more out of your life than you ever have before. I won't ask you to tell me why you are so reluctant to try it, but I _will_ ask you to let these people help you."

"What's the point, Ducky?" Tim asked, looking up again. "I just can't see that anything will get better, no matter what they want to do."

Ducky smiled sympathetically. " _That_ is why you need the help. Others can see what you can't. They can see the potential you have. They can see the hope that you can't see. They can help you find the peace you desperately need. Leaving is the best thing."

"For who?"

"You, Timothy. While I will miss you, your life will be much better away from Hazard, and I hope that I'll be welcome to visit from time to time."

"Why would you want to?" Tim asked. "It's not like you know me all that well. All I've been is a problem for you since Mary was killed. Why would you want to visit?"

"Because while you definitely have _had_ problems, you are _not_ a problem to me. It would be a pleasure to see you in a more positive life than you could ever have here. You will never be a problem to me."

That was such an unfamiliar sentiment for Tim to have applied to himself. He didn't know how to take it. He didn't know how to respond to it. So he said nothing.

Ducky didn't seem to care about that. He reached out and squeezed Tim's shoulder.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs was waiting in the hallway, thinking about where to go next. There had to be some way of proving who had killed Mary. Tim had accused Sheriff Drake and what they'd seen made it a distinct possibility, but all they had so far was circumstantial evidence.

His phone rang.

"Gibbs."

" _Okay, Gibbs, you owe me."_

"What do I owe you, Hollis?" he asked, smiling a little.

" _You owe me dinner, at least."_

"Only if you have something."

" _I do. Or I think I do. She didn't give the names of any of her clients, but someone reported her to the police. An anonymous tip that there was prostitution going on, and it doesn't look like she tried to deny it. She was arrested, and this is where it gets interesting."_

"What?"

" _The record states that Margaret McGee couldn't afford to pay the fine when she was arrested. She pled hardship, that she was just trying to earn enough money to live on and it looks like they believed her, but the fine was still there and she either had to pay it or go to jail."_

"What about her son?"

" _Nothing about that in the record. Either they didn't know about him or they looked the other way. If not, she would have had a much bigger problem because bringing a child into a place of prostitution carries extra penalties. There's no indication of anything extra."_

"And?"

" _And she didn't go to jail, but she didn't pay the fine, either. Someone else did."_

"Who?"

" _The name in the file is Jonathan Drake, but I did some checking and the only Jonathan Drake who was close enough to be involved was in a nursing home and very unlikely to be able to come and pay the $1,000 fine."_

"A thousand dollars?"

" _That's what the file says. It was paid in cash by this Jonathan Drake and that's all she wrote. Is that worth dinner?"_

"Yes. I'll call you."

" _You'd better. Good luck, Jethro."_

"Thanks."

Gibbs hung up and considered that. Sheriff Drake's father was Jonathan Drake. The fine had been paid in cash which meant no need to verify the identity. No record to prove that it wasn't his father, but that was another piece. The more pieces, the less circumstantial it became. Then, there was that anonymous tip. It could easily have been a neighbor who didn't like what was going on, but what if it had been Sheriff Drake, again? What if he'd been planning on getting her closer to him and this was the way he decided to do it?

Then, he remembered one other thing. Ned Dorneget had said that his mother hadn't liked Margaret McGee but that she would never say why. Maybe it was time to find that out while Tim was in good hands.

"Gibbs, you found him?"

Speaking of good hands...

"He's in with Ducky, Dr. Cranston," Gibbs said.

Rachel joined him in the hallway.

"And?"

"And he told me that he saw his mother kill his father and his father's girlfriend. Blunt-force trauma from what he said."

"Oh. That's awful," Rachel said. "I thought it was mostly conjecture, that he'd seen his mother there and made the obvious connection. No wonder he fell apart. Seeing a murder at that age and with all that baggage already. He told you this?"

"Yeah, but he didn't want to, and he hasn't said anything more about it since. He thought Ducky was dead because that's what happens to people in bedrooms."

"Oh. All right. You want me here with him?"

"Yes. Kate and Tony are out looking around. I'll tell them."

"I'll be here."

"Tim isn't staying here. He's leaving with us, today."

"Are you sure about that? He may not go."

"He will, and he needs to. We're getting him out of here."

"Okay. No argument from me. There may be some from him, though." Rachel smiled a little. "Any orders?"

"Whatever you think."

"I'll do my best. What are you going to do?"

"Try to solve the case."

She nodded and knocked on the door.

"It's Rachel Cranston," she said.

"Come in!"

Rachel gave Gibbs one last look and went into the room.

Gibbs looked at his watch. It was late enough to expect people to be up. He headed out of the hospital.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony sighed with relief and hung up his phone.

"What is it?" Kate asked.

"Gibbs found Tim. He was walking down the road, leaving Hazard."

"Going where?"

"Away, from what I could tell," Tony said. "I think there's more to it, but you know the boss."

"Yeah. Good. I'm glad that we know where he is."

"Rachel is with him at the hospital."

"Even better. Okay. So what now?"

"I say we go back to the McGee house and look again."

"You're really stuck on that, Tony," Kate said. "We've looked. You looked with Gibbs, twice. Why are you so set on finding something there that you didn't find the first three times?"

"I don't know. I just feel like there should be something to find...and I want to find it."

"Maybe there is, but does that mean it has to be found _there_?"

"Where else?"

"I don't know, but you're the one saying that there's something to find."

"Yeah. I just...I want to do something. Until we figure this out, people are going to blame Tim for it. The more we can get, the better it will be."

"In the long term, not necessarily short term, but okay. Let's go look again."

They started walking back to the McGee house to take another look at what might be hidden there.

If anything.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs walked up the sidewalk to a neatly-kept house on the edge of Hazard. It was pretty small, but there was no question that there were people who cared about it living there. Ned had agreed to call his mother and let her know that Gibbs was coming and encourage her to be helpful.

Gibbs wasn't sure exactly what to expect from Mrs. Dorneget, but he was sure it would interesting...if he could get her to talk.

He knocked politely and waited.

After a few seconds, the door opened and a stern-looking woman with spiky white hair squinted at him.

"Ma'am. I'm Agent Gibbs."

She raised an eyebrow and stood back to let him in. He stepped inside and waited as she shuffled by and sat down.

"Have a seat, Agent Gibbs," she said. Her voice was as sharp as her hairstyle.

"Thank you, ma'am."

Gibbs sat down on a chair.

"I don't often get my son calling me to tell me that an officer needs to ask me questions. What is this all about?"

"Your son told us that you didn't approve of Margaret McGee."

"So? I'm not required to like every person I see."

"That's true, ma'am, but your son also mentioned that you would never tell him why."

Her eyebrow went up again. "And you want to know?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Why?"

"Because we're trying to figure out who killed Mary Fields."

"What does my opinion of Margaret McGee have to do with the death of that poor girl?"

"Maybe nothing. That's why I'm asking."

She actually smiled. "Oh, there's no getting information out of you, is there, Agent Gibbs?"

"Only if I think it's necessary."

"All right. I don't like to speak ill of the dead. It's bad manners, you see. I don't approve of talking just to gossip. I know how to keep things to myself."

"But it might help."

"If you think that will soothe my conscience."

Gibbs smiled at Mrs. Dorneget. He liked this strong-willed woman and he figured he could trust what she had to say.

"Margaret McGee never put on airs, if that's what you're thinking. I approved of that. People shouldn't go around acting like they're better than everyone else. I don't approve of that kind of nonsense. Actually, I think she was trying _not_ to be noticed. She worked in the post office, but it never paid her much more than bare subsistence living. She got by, but not much more than that, and probably it was sometimes less. That's rather common here. Hazard has never been a bustling town. Sometimes, I'm surprised that the town hasn't died. It probably will in another generation or two unless we get more of the kids to stay. I always had wondered why she came here. The job at the post office didn't open until about...six months after she moved here. Before that...well..."

"That long?" Gibbs was surprised. He had known that she worked at the post office, but he had assumed that the job had opened soon after she had come. Six months without a job when she was that poor?

"Yes. I didn't think anything of it, you understand. Not at first. Not until later after I saw what I saw. A few of us tried to be welcoming, but Margaret...well, she wasn't that kind of woman. She was always acting like she was hiding from something. With how strange her son is, it could have been because of him. ...but part of me always wondered if his strangeness was _because_ of her hiding, not the _cause_ of her hiding."

Gibbs didn't say anything, although he could see that she was expecting him to ask about Tim.

"Well, I'll try to get back on topic. I don't approve of people who can't just say what they mean. One day, I was walking by the river, just above the bank when I heard two people talking. I'm a curious person; so I got close enough to eavesdrop."

"Who was it?"

"Margaret...and Alan Drake. He wasn't the sheriff, then. He was just an officer, but he was on his way to that position and everyone knew it. Including him. He was riding on the coat tails of his father."

"And what were they talking about?"

"Now, you swear to me that what I'm about to tell you is important?"

"I can't do that without knowing what you're going to tell me, but I will tell you that it _could_ help."

Mrs. Dorneget gave an exasperated sigh.

"Very well. Forcing me to talk about unsavory things like this. I don't approve of this kind of talk."

Gibbs suppressed a smile and didn't point out that she had apparently _wanted_ to know about it in the first place.

"I was just able to see them. Alan had his hands on Margaret. He was touching her. She didn't look very happy about it, but she didn't push him away, either. I knew Sally. She was a good friend of mine before she died. Poor woman. She was so kind and sweet. I approved of her. I think she could have done better, but Alan always treated her right. Good thing, too. I don't approve of men who disrespect their wives. She had been dead for nearly two years, but still..." Mrs. Dorneget frowned disapprovingly. "Then, Alan asked her when he could come over again. He told her that he'd pay her double, and she said that she wasn't sure. She said that Tim was acting so strangely about it that maybe it was time to stop it. He told her that she had promised him when he came that she'd be available, that she'd lied to him, that he'd already paid for her. He called her some names that I _won't_ repeat, no matter _what_ you say. I don't approve of that kind of language."

"You don't have to repeat them."

"Good, because I won't," she said, sharply. "It was very obvious what they were talking about. It was obvious from the words and from the tone...and the way he was touching her. She was selling herself and he was buying. I didn't approve of it, but it wasn't my place to say anything; so I didn't. I kept it to myself, but I never could look at either of them the same way again. I did _not_ approve of that kind of behavior. When my Ned decided he wanted to be a police officer, I encouraged him to go somewhere else, but he's such a responsible boy. He wanted to be here to help us. I have bad arthritis in my hands. Nedrick, my husband, he's starting to forget things. So we need the help, but I would rather have had him go elsewhere. With Stan there, I figured he'd still get a good beginning. I approve of Stan."

Gibbs got the feeling that Mrs. Dorneget could give a long list of all the things she approved of and _didn't_ approve of...and that it wouldn't take her long to give it.

"I approve of him, too," Gibbs said. "I worked with him for a few years before he came here."

"Oh, did you? Then, perhaps, you might meet my approval, too. Stan has a good head on his shoulders. So does my Ned. Otherwise, I wouldn't have agreed to talk to you at all."

"I understand."

There was a moment of silence.

"Well?" she asked.

"Well, what, ma'am?"

"Did that help?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me how your knowing about why I didn't like Margaret McGee helps in figuring out who killed Mary?"

Gibbs stood up.

"Not yet, ma'am, but I promise that when I can, I'll tell your son and he'll let you know."

Mrs. Dorneget stood up, too.

"Very well, Agent Gibbs, but you had better carry through on that promise. I don't approve of people who toss around the word _promise_ willy-nilly."

"I don't do that, ma'am."

"Very well. I'll see you out and no mucking about telling me that you can get out yourself. I know you can, but I don't approve of not showing basic courtesy and walking one's guests to the door."

Gibbs suppressed a smile. He wondered what Mr. Dorneget was like. He would either have to be completely laid-back or else strong enough to counter the force of Mrs. Dorneget's approval.

"Thank you for your time, ma'am. I appreciate it."

"Good. Now, you go and finish up your work. No lollygagging. I don't approve of laziness. Work is good for you. It's too bad more people aren't willing to work hard."

She shooed him out of the house and closed the door firmly behind him. Gibbs couldn't help wondering if she would tell her husband that she _approved_ of the agent from the capital.

Then, his mind went back to what she said. It looked like Abby's guess had been right. There remained the question of how in the world Sheriff Drake had found Margaret in the first place, but he definitely had. When she moved to Hazard, Sheriff Drake was paying her for sex or at least for access to her. When she ended it, she had got a job at the post office to pay the bills. But the damage had been done. Tim hated Sheriff Drake for being with his mother. Sheriff Drake hated Tim for being the driving force behind depriving him of his access to Margaret.

Did this mean that he had killed Mary? No, but it was another indication that all was not right with Sheriff Drake. He was the reason Margaret McGee had come to Hazard. He had been soliciting. He hadn't been happy to have that taken away. And he had ended up taking photos of Margaret in lieu of having sex with her. Had he spent a lot of time looking at the photos or was taking them enough? Impossible to know without Sheriff Drake admitting it. Then, after her death, he had moved on to someone else. A woman who had a passing resemblance to Margaret. Why kill her, though? There was no indication of any actual relationship between them. The only contact had been between Mary and Alan, Jr. Worry that contact with her would spoil his son's chances? Jealousy that his son could woo her but he couldn't? Or maybe, it was Tim again. Maybe it was the fact that she had an obvious attachment to Tim. Another woman who chose Tim over the Drake family.

Whatever the reason, the circumstantial evidence was starting to build up.


	30. Chapter 30

**Chapter 30**

Rachel walked into the room and saw Tim sitting beside Ducky.

"I'm glad to see you here, Tim," Rachel said.

Tim looked at her and then at Ducky. Then, he stared at his hands.

"I left."

"I heard. Would you be willing to talk to me about what happened?"

"I don't want to talk about it, again."

Rachel looked at Ducky who just nodded.

"I have some questions for you, but we don't have to go into what you told Agent Gibbs if you don't want to, right now."

"I don't."

"That's fine. Do you want to stay in here or go somewhere private?"

Tim glanced at Ducky.

"I'm not offended, lad. In fact, now that I know you're safe, I could use a nap. I think I'll rest a bit while you talk to Rachel."

"Okay."

Rachel gestured and Tim stood and then followed her out of Ducky's room. There was an empty room right next door and Rachel got permission to use it. Then, she sat down with Tim in the room.

"So, Tim, I understand that your night was pretty bad."

Tim nodded.

"Let's talk about that, all right?"

"There was a fire. I thought Ducky had died."

"What did you do?"

"I couldn't let his body burn. I pulled him out of the house and tried to stop the fire. I just wanted the fire out."

Rachel nodded, encouragingly.

"Tell me what you were thinking. Not what others would say happened. I want to know what your thoughts and feelings were. Okay?"

"If I hadn't been there, he would still be alive. Whoever did it was attacking _me_ , not Ducky. I ran to the river and I just wanted to put out the fire."

"What fire, Tim?"

"The one in my head, the one that never goes out. It's always burning and I wanted it out."

"So what did you do?" Rachel asked. She knew that Tim's sketchpad had gone into the river, but she wanted to hear Tim's perception of what he had done.

"I drew the fire so much. I wanted the fire out of my head, but it never seemed to stop. Every time I close my eyes, I can see the fire. So I threw it in the river, except I didn't want to throw Mary in the river again. That's where she ended up. I couldn't put her back there."

Tim pulled two folded pieces of paper out of his pocket.

"May I?" Rachel asked, holding out her hand.

Tim gave her the paper and she unfolded them. With a sad smile she saw the first picture Tim had drawn of Mary, the only one without Tim's personal demons surrounding her. Then, she looked at the second picture. It wasn't finished.

"What is this?"

"It's not done."

"I can see that. You just started it?"

Tim nodded.

"What is it?"

"I taught her to skip rocks once. ...like my dad taught me."

Rachel handed both pages back to Tim.

"So you threw the rest into the river?"

Tim nodded. "I ripped up the lie and threw it in, too."

"What was the lie?"

"My family. My family was all a lie. And I threw the card you gave me, too. I was going to leave and there was nothing that I could do to make it better, nothing anyone could do. It was going to stay wrong forever."

Rachel could see this path that Tim had been on. It was a relief that Gibbs had stopped him before he got too far. Even though it had led Tim out of Hazard, it wouldn't have led to anything positive. His belief that Ducky had been killed had apparently been the last straw for Tim. The only other person he believed cared about him had died because of him (as he saw it). That would have eaten at him and put him on a very dark track. His usual track was dark enough as it was.

"I'm glad you didn't keep going. I think leaving Hazard is a good idea, but you need to have a destination, a goal."

"I don't."

"I know that," Rachel said with a smile. "Tim, your family wasn't always a lie. That photograph wasn't a lie."

"Yes, it was!" Tim said, agitated again. He stood up and turned away from her. "It was always a lie! It's not a family. It's..." He stopped, unwilling to go back to what he had spoken of only once in his life.

"I'm glad you saved those pictures of Mary, Tim," Rachel said, letting him avoid that topic for a little while. "It's good that you saved your best work."

Tim turned back to her, looking earnest, pleading for something she didn't understand. He didn't speak, but he looked at her.

"What is it, Tim?"

"Why?"

"Why what?"

Tim sank back down to the chair.

"Even this is a lie," he said, holding out the picture of Mary. "But I can't...throw it away, too. I don't know why. After what I saw... Why did she do that?"

Now, Rachel had a conundrum. Ducky had been sure that telling Tim what Mary had done for him would be devastating, but he was looking on her actions as yet another betrayal, something else to show him that the world hated him and would always be bad. Which would be the worse feeling? Which could he better tolerate?

But Tim needed people on his side, people who were trying to help him rather than reject him. Mary had been trying to help, although the results of it may not have been what anyone wanted.

Decision made, but hoping desperately that it was the right one, Rachel leaned forward.

"Tim, I'm going to tell you something that will upset you. I need you to listen to me all the way to end of what I'm going to say, all right?"

"Okay."

"Mary was trying to help you that night."

"But..."

"Let me finish," Rachel said, keeping her voice low and gentle. "Alan had threatened to make your life harder by going to his father if she didn't have sex with him. It was a game for him, but she didn't want you to be hurt. She didn't betray you. She was trying to help you."

Tim was still. His expression had taken on that blank, frozen look that had too often fooled people into thinking he had no emotion, no feeling when, in reality, he had so much emotion that he couldn't bear it.

"If she had lived, I think she would have found you and explained things to you...at least as much as she felt you could handle. Mary didn't betray you. She cared for you."

Tim remained mute, and Rachel could guess at some of the thoughts going through his head.

"Tim?"

He looked at her, silently, his eyes roiling with emotion.

"This is not something that is your fault. It is not something that you have to do anything about on the outside. The only reason I'm telling you this is because I want you to understand that not everyone in your life will betray you. Mary didn't do that. She wanted to help you and protect you."

Tim shivered.

"Tell me what you're feeling, Tim. Talk about it. It will help more than hiding from it, no matter how hard it is."

Tim unfolded the page with the drawing of Mary on it. He looked at it.

"She was so beautiful," he whispered.

"Yes."

"I was so mad at her."

"I understand."

"I can't tell her."

"Tell her what?"

"That I'm sorry. That I don't want her to be gone. She was..." Tim stopped, his voice thick. "She was the only light I ever saw. And she's gone. I yelled at her. I pushed her away. After what happened and..."

"And it's not your fault. You have no reason to blame yourself. We don't yet know _what_ happened. You weren't with her all the time. You couldn't have been. Whoever it is that killed her would have got to her eventually if he really wanted to."

Tim stared at the floor again.

"What do I do, now?"

"Agent Gibbs says that you're not staying here. So you'll be leaving."

"But what do I do?"

"Get the help you've always needed."

"But that's not enough," Tim said.

"No, it's not. I agree, but you'll find more as you go along. Don't assume you have to wait until you figure all of it out to get what you can. It's going to be small steps."

"But...what will I do? I...I don't have any money. I don't have a home. I don't have family. I don't have anything."

Rachel leaned over until Tim met her gaze. She smiled.

"You do have something, Tim. You have a friend here who cares about you. You have people who aren't friends right now, but could be, who want to help you get more out of life than you've been able to so far. And you have the raw intelligence to do something more with your life. You _have_ lost a lot, and I'm not going to pretend that this will make it all perfect, but things _can_ get better, even if you can't see that possibility right now."

"What about Mary?"

"We're not giving up," Rachel said, firmly. "It can't bring her back, but we'll find out what happened to her."

"And then what?"

Rachel smiled again. "I don't know, Tim. Usually, we don't know what comes next. We have to take a few steps into the darkness before we see what's further along."

"Will that put out the fire in my head?"

"Eventually."

Tim looked around the room and then out the window.

"I hate this place. I've always hated it. From day one."

"You don't have to stay."

"And it will be better?" Tim asked.

"Yes."

Tim was silent for a few seconds. Then, he looked at her again.

"You didn't ask."

"No, I didn't. You've had enough for today. I might push later, but not right now. I would like to ask you just one question."

"What?"

"You've said that you and Mary weren't dating. I believe you. But how did you feel about her?"

Rachel watched as Tim looked down, looked around, looked anywhere but at her. She could guess why that might be. If Tim's perceptions of love and sex and emotional connections were as messed up as they seemed to be, he would be afraid of admitting anything akin to physical attraction, and he had already told Kate that he didn't think love could do anything for anyone. But the way he talked about Mary and the things he'd done in the past indicated something far more than friendly feeling.

If he would admit it.

"She was so beautiful."

Rachel nodded but didn't speak, wanting to let Tim work himself around to saying it.

More silent seconds.

"I loved her," Tim whispered, almost inaudibly.

"Love is a good thing, Tim. It's nothing to be ashamed of."

"It didn't save her."

"No, it didn't, but it did help her. She needed you, just like you needed her. Love is a part of that. It's okay to love people, Tim."

"I loved her," he said again, stroking the drawing.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Is there anywhere we haven't already looked three times?" Kate asked.

"Yes. The kitchen," Tony said.

"Which was burned out by the fire," Kate pointed out.

"True, but the worst of it was in the living room. So there could be something."

"All right. Let's look."

The kitchen was small. Very little counter space, small appliances, just a few cupboards.

"Okay...why don't you go look in the bedroom again, and I'll look in here," Tony said.

Kate raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Because there's barely room to turn around in here."

"And?"

"And I want the credit if we find anything," Tony said with a grin.

Kate chuckled and left. Alone in the room, Tony looked around, wondering where in the world he could look that might be a hiding place. ...if there was one.

 _Why am I so sure about this?_

Probably, a part of it was a desire to fix Tim's situation. He didn't like seeing someone so miserable. Tim had been kicked down so often that he needed something to make things better. Solving the mysteries of his life and of Mary's death seemed, more and more, to be two halves of the same whole.

"Tony! I found something!"

Tony turned from his rapt contemplation of the burned-out oven.

"What?"

"I found something! Come here!"

Tony hurried from the kitchen into the bedroom and saw Kate sitting on the bed holding a picture frame.

"Where was that?"

"On the floor. It looks like it had a picture in here. There's a double backing. I peeled it apart, and, _voila_."

She held out a folded piece of paper.

"What's on it?"

Kate smiled. "I thought you might want to be the one to find out. I didn't open it."

Tony smiled back and took the paper. Carefully, he unfolded the paper and looked at it.

"It's a contract, it looks like," he said.

"Contract?"

"Yeah. Between..." He looked up. "...Margaret McGee and Alan Drake."

"Contract for what?"

"He promised a monthly...payment in return for her services."

"Is it explicit?" Kate asked.

Tony read more. "Sex paid more than simple fondling."

Kate took the paper back and read it herself.

"Man, this isn't getting any happier, is it."

"No, but it's showing a deeper connection than we thought. Do you think Sheriff Drake would admit to more if we confronted him with this much?"

"No reason he should, you know. Just because she had this piece of paper, doesn't mean that it's genuine. No signatures, for one thing. It looks like more of a record that she was keeping than an actual contract. I wonder why she bothered if she gave up on doing it."

"Insurance policy?" Tony suggested.

"Maybe, but she never did anything with it."

"Maybe she died before she could."

"Maybe, but I'd have thought that she'd do something with it sooner if she had wanted to."

Tony considered that for a few seconds.

"Maybe...it was an insurance policy, not for money, but for protection. People didn't like her. They didn't like Tim. Since she wasn't doing anything with him, after a while, at least, maybe this was the way she made sure they didn't have to leave or have any real trouble. In a place like this, true proof or not, all she'd have to do is show that to a few people and everyone would know. How long do you think Sheriff Drake would have _stayed_ Sheriff Drake if people knew he was paying for sex?"

"Not long. Maybe. That sounds like a possibility. However, right now, if he's smart, he won't admit to anything because he doesn't have to."

"Well, this is something more to add to what we know."

"Every little bit helps. Let's see what Gibbs has to say."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

As Gibbs was heading back to the hospital, he had a sudden thought and he turned the car the opposite direction. Toward the Fields house. Maybe Martin Fields didn't know anything about what his daughter had been doing, but maybe Mary herself had kept some kind of a journal. It was a long shot, but something worth trying.

He walked up to the door and knocked, knowing that it was possible that Mary's father would be asleep or on his pain medication. He also knew that it might be that Martin Fields wouldn't want to let him look through his daughter's possessions.

After a few seconds, just long enough for Gibbs to think that there would be no answer, he heard the same shuffling gait as before.

The door opened and Martin Fields stood there, staring at him in surprise.

"You're the state man."

"Agent Gibbs, Mr. Fields."

"How did you know?"

"Know what?" Gibbs asked.

"Come inside."

Mr. Fields shuffled to a chair and sat. Then, he picked up a notebook from a small side table. He looked down at it and then up at Gibbs.

"You said that it was justice you were trying to get."

"Yes."

"I've never thought much of it, you know. Justice. Always seemed to me that the people most concerned with justice were the ones least worthy of dealing it out. Most of us just got on with things and didn't worry about those high and mighty words. Living's hard enough." He looked at the notebook again. "But you got me thinking. Not many people have done that. I have so much time alone, you see. Not much I can do besides think. Think and sleep. I never went into her space. Not ever. Wouldn't be right to go into her room. She was an adult and I had to give her room to live and be an adult. Well, I went in there two days ago. Never go in there again, but I found this." He pointed to the notebook. "I read it. And I been trying to think of what to do about it since then. And you show up out of nowhere like you already know what I got here."

"I was going to ask you if I could look through her room," Gibbs said, honestly. "I didn't know you'd done it."

Mr. Fields nodded and handed the notebook to him with no ceremony.

"I don't want that back, you hear. I want you to read it and do what's right with it, whatever that is, but I don't want it back."

Gibbs wondered what was in this notebook that had so unsettled Mr. Fields.

"All right."

"Good. Now, you can go. I'm tired. Take that with you."

Mr. Fields got up and left the room, leaving Gibbs to stare after him. Rather than look at the notebook right now, he stood and left the house, ready to link up with everyone else and figure out what had happened.


	31. Chapter 31

**Chapter 31**

Tim was still talking to Rachel when Gibbs got back. While waiting for everyone to return, he began flipping through the notebook Mr. Fields had given him. The writing wasn't glamorous. Nor was it sloppy. It was an interesting mix between cursive and print. Easy to read, but not as simple as print. Curious, he turned to the very first entry and, for the first time, Mary herself was given a voice.

 _Here I am. Back in Hazard. I hate this place. I never wanted to come back, but Dad told me that he has cancer, that it's terminal and that he needs someone to help him. Marty and Marc told Dad that he could go and live with them, but they knew he'd never go. Dad moved us all back to Hazard just because he loved this town so much. Mom died here. Dad wants to die here, too. Not in California. Someone had to come and live here until he dies. I know that Marty can't move his whole family out here, but Marc isn't doing anything in California that he couldn't do here. But no, it's all on me. I don't know how long I'll be here. Even though I feel terrible writing it, I hope I'm not here long._

 _The only reason I don't feel worse is because Dad feels the same way. He has no interest in living longer. He just wants to die on his own terms. I can respect that, but I sure don't like it. He's become so... I don't know how to describe it, but he acted like a father when I was young, before Mom died. He would play with us, laugh with us. Oh, he was always pretty stern, but he was my dad. Now, I feel like I'm a hospice worker dealing with a patient. You want things to go well for him, but there's no real family feeling. It's like Mom took his love with her and there's nothing left for the rest of us._

 _I don't know how often I'll really write in here, but it's nice to have something. None of my friends are here. The people who stayed in Hazard are the ones I never wanted to be with._

 _Grin and bear it seems like the only policy._

Three years ago, when she'd moved back to Hazard. Tim had said she didn't want to be there, and it looked like she had been just as unhappy about it as Tim had suggested.

Then, he wondered if she had written about the first meeting with Tim. He flipped through it a few pages until he saw Tim's name mentioned.

 _There was a guy at the river the other day. I was standing by the bank, waiting for the sun to set which means I have to go back and see what help Dad needs before he goes to bed. I looked over and there he was, sitting and staring at me. As soon as he saw me looking at him, he looked embarrassed and ran away, but today, he was there again. Sitting alone, doing nothing, it seemed to me. I asked Dad about him, and he told me that he was the town freak, that his mom died a couple of years ago, and he was a loner and I shouldn't have anything to do with him. His name is Tim. I decided to talk to him. I'll admit it. I decided to talk to him as much because Dad told me not to as anything. I don't plan on mentioning that to him, though. No point._

 _It turns out that I should have known him already. We were in high school together, but I don't remember him at all. He even said that we were in some of the same classes. Was I that thoughtless? Or was he that good at staying out of sight? I don't know, but I feel kind of bad about it. HHS wasn't big enough for someone to be a complete unknown to me. I guess that means he didn't participate in anything. We must not have been in PE together because I'm sure I would have seen him there. He told me that he hates being here, and something about the way he said it makes it seem like he hates Hazard a million times more than I do. There's a real depth to how much he hates this place._

 _There's definitely something strange about him. We were talking and then suddenly, he got this strange look on his face and ran away. I don't know how to describe it. It was like...fear, only there was no reason for him to be afraid. But it wasn't just fear, either. There was something more to it than that. I don't know. If I was smart, I'd probably stay away from him from now on. There's no question that he's not quite right. Still, I saw something more than that in him. He's weird, but he's not malicious...at least, not so far. All I'd probably have to do to avoid him is stay away from the river. It seems like he's never anywhere else. I caught a glimpse of him at the grocery store once before I saw him at the river, but he walks around like he's afraid of being seen, like he's trying to avoid contact with anyone. I asked Paul about him, but all he said was that Tim gave him the creeps and he always wanted him out of the store. Paul's sure changed. He used to just be Alan's little stupid sidekick, but he's grown up a lot in the years since I left Hazard. He even has a girlfriend and he told me that he's thinking of proposing._

 _I want to know more about why Tim is like this. People don't get twisted around like he is for no reason. I want to know that more than I want to be smart. I think I'll go to the river again tomorrow. I wonder how often he goes there._

Gibbs smiled a little. Mary hadn't been in it for friendship in the beginning. Not surprising, really. Tim was the kind of person that wouldn't invite that kind of feeling to start. It was curiosity, and she had so little in the town that this probably had seemed like a perfect opportunity to have something to occupy her time.

He wanted to look for more about Tim specifically, but he knew that he should look for things about Sheriff Drake. So he did. Surely, she'd mention when she first noticed that he was watching her.

 _I wish there was someone I could talk to, but I don't dare. Sheriff Drake has been following me around. At first, I thought it was just my imagination. Just a coincidence that we were in the same places at the same time so often. Hazard's a small place. Not much crime to deal with. I don't like the way he's looking at me. There's something...hungry about it. If it was Alan looking at me that way, I'd know how to deal with it. I'd tell him to get that look off his face or I'd do it for him. But Sheriff Drake...he's not someone to cross. I've always known that. Look at the way he treats Tim. Tim's never done anything that I know of, and yet, you'd think that he was a career criminal the way Sheriff Drake treats him. I asked Tim about it once and he wouldn't tell me. He said it was a case of mutual hatred, but there has to be a reason, and even so, there's no excuse for Sheriff Drake's behavior. Stan would probably listen to me, but he's not the sheriff and the sheriff is the problem._

 _If he touches me, I'll fight him, but I hate the way he looks at me. It's almost like he's touching me anyway. Once, when I saw him looking at me, he didn't look away. He just gave me the most chilling smile and lingered until I was the one who broke eye contact. I never liked Hazard, but I never felt unsafe here._

 _Until now._

 _Dad's still got cancer. He's still dying, but he's sure not getting around to it very fast. I hate that I feel so trapped here. I could just leave and get away from the sheriff and I'd never have to see him again or feel his eyes on me again, but I can't leave Dad alone and he doesn't care about anyone or anything but himself. So I can't tell him, either._

 _I'm alone in this. Maybe it's a phase and this will go away. I can only hope._

So she'd noticed it. How early, there was no way of knowing. She wasn't writing dates on these entries. But the sheriff had been watching her before she saw him taking photos.

Gibbs flipped forward further, looking for more.

 _Tim noticed that Sheriff Drake was taking photos of me. He asked me about it, but I'm not going to bring the sheriff down on him for any reason. I told him it wasn't important. I don't know if he believes me or not. Tim is so hard to read. Every time I think I've made some headway, something will scare him, something will make him pull back. I don't know why. Then, he'll suddenly open his eyes to the world around him and he'll see things I don't want him to see. Like Sheriff Drake and his camera._

 _I'm starting to understand why Tim likes the river so much. It feels like the only place in the world where things can be good...but even here, Sheriff Drake hovers around the edges. I've seen him take pictures of me when I'm here with Tim. I don't know why he keeps doing it. He never says anything to me. ...well, he hasn't since warning me to stay away from Tim. I told him to shove it. He wasn't happy about that, and there was something in his eyes that scared me. I was glad we were in public when it happened. It meant that he couldn't do anything. I think he would do something if he could be sure that no one would see. He doesn't like being crossed. He's like Alan in that way. Or Alan is like him since Alan is his son. Alan is here, too. He's already made a pass at me and I already told him where to go and how to get there. He's just like he was in high school. A jerk who thinks he's God's gift to mankind when, in reality, mankind would be improved with him out of the gene pool._

 _I'm trying not to look at Sheriff Drake when I see him. I keep hoping he'll stop, lose interest in me. Why me? Why is this happening at a time when I can't get away? I wish that I had a real father to talk to. Heck, even Marty or Marc would do something if they were here, but they don't care about Dad, either._

 _If only Tim were a little more stable. I feel like, if he weren't so locked up inside, he'd be the kind of person who would always be there for you._

Mary wasn't a pushover. She wasn't weak, but she had felt alone and unable to ask for help. And here, there was an indication of fear of reprisals. It wasn't just Sheriff Drake stalking her. She was genuinely afraid of him. She probably didn't know Stan well enough to know whether or not he would believe her. Same with Ducky. Two men who would have listened and tried to help, but if she didn't trust them...

Gibbs found himself wishing that there was a way to go back in time, but he knew as well as anyone that the past couldn't be changed. He flipped further, near the end of the notebook. There would be time to go back and read the whole thing, if necessary, but now that he knew there was a pattern of stalking and fear that went back for some time, he wanted to see if Mary had been prescient of her coming death. He went to the very last entry.

 _Alan finally found a way to get what he wanted. He's pursued me before, and I've always said no because I hate him. Today, he cornered me in the store and said that I had two choices: give him what he wants or watch the sheriff go after Tim again. The thing is that I know Alan isn't kidding. Sheriff Drake has always favored him, looked the other way when Alan did something wrong. Since he hates Tim already, he'd be more than willing to do it. So I said yes. Tonight. I already feel dirty for agreeing, but I guess it'll be worth it for Tim's sake. Alan won't care about anything long-term. The only reason he wants me is because he can't have me. Once he gets what he wants, he'll move on to someone else._

Then, there was a definite time lapse because the next paragraph was obviously written after her encounter with Alan.

 _It's over. And things didn't go quite like I'd planned. Tim saw Alan and me in Alan's truck. Not only Tim, but Sheriff Drake, too. I looked up and saw Tim staring at me. He looked shocked, disgusted, and angry. But before I could do anything or say anything, the sheriff pulled up and Tim ran. In fact, he was in such a hurry to get away that he left his scarf where it got caught in a bush. Alan found it. He was going to take it with him, but I grabbed it. In fact, I'm wearing it right now. I still remember when Tim put it around my neck and said that it didn't suit me. One of those rare times when Tim would smile like a normal person and I got a glimpse of who he could be._

 _I don't know what to do about it, but Tim won't understand. I need to find him and explain...tell him something. I don't know what I could say that would make it better, at least, not without telling him the reason I was with Alan in the first place. And that would not make it better. Tim would be horrified. I think it might be worse if I told him why. I just don't know how to get through to him._

 _But besides that, there's Sheriff Drake. The way he looked at me tonight gave me the chills. It was like he thought I'd betrayed him, just like Tim thought I had. He was yelling at Alan and Alan was ignoring him, but then... Then, he looked at me and got quiet. When he saw the scarf, I swear that he almost exploded. But he didn't say a word to me. Alan was done with me, too; so I just walked away, left them bickering and I came home._

 _I feel used. I feel hurt. I feel alone. And I'm scared. I'm scared of Sheriff Drake. Maybe I should say something to someone. I just don't know who. Maybe Ned would listen to me. I haven't talked to him since high school, though. I don't know._

 _I just need someone on my side._

Gibbs sighed. The day before her death, obviously. And she had finally decided to find someone to help her. There was someone on Mary's side. It was just too late for that to save her.

He looked up as the doors opened and saw Tony and Kate coming into the hospital.

Time to work.


	32. Chapter 32

**Chapter 32**

It wasn't even noon by the time they all returned to the hospital. After all that had happened, it felt like the day should be over, but there were hours left in it.

Tony was surprised to see Gibbs sitting on a bench, looking a little dejected, actually. For Gibbs to show anything was a definite shock.

"What's up, Boss?" he asked.

Gibbs said nothing, predictably, but he handed Tony a notebook. Tony glanced at Kate and she moved close to him so that they could both read it.

Instantly, they realized what this was.

"Where did you get this, Gibbs?" Kate asked.

"From Mary's father. He didn't want it. Gave it to me."

Tony wasn't surprised when Kate snatched the notebook from his hands and began reading it in more depth. This was what Kate had been hoping for, a window to Mary's identity. Who she was, why she had done what she had done.

"Read the last entry," Gibbs said.

Tony read the page with Kate and felt disgusted by what had happened. While it wasn't technically illegal, Alan was sure showing his true colors, and Mary's own disgust only made it worse.

Kate looked up.

"She was genuinely afraid of Sheriff Drake. That's not an exaggeration we're seeing here. She thought he might hurt her."

"Still isn't proof," Gibbs said.

"But it's more evidence. I wonder..."

"What?" Tony asked.

"The more we learn about him, the less in control of himself he seems, the more...warped he seems," Kate said. "He's been the sheriff for years. That's control over the area. He was angry when Margaret McGee broke off their agreement. He lost control of her and apparently took pictures of her, perhaps as a way of getting back that control. If Mary's perception was right, he was angry that she had rejected him in getting with his son, but the scarf was the trigger. He was furious that she was wearing it, as if it was pushing him away again. He has to be on top. He has to be the winner. It's almost a kind of narcissism."

"So...what does that do for us?" Tony asked.

Kate looked at him and then at Gibbs. "If I'm right, then, if he is guilty, he doesn't want to have to justify all this that he's done. He thinks he's right. He thinks that it's ridiculous that people are trying to punish him for asserting his rights. He had a right to have sex with Margaret McGee whether she wanted him to or not. He had a right to torment Tim McGee because he's in charge around here. He had a right to stalk Mary Fields because he wanted her. ...and he had a right to kill her when she didn't follow along with his desires."

"But we can't prove any of that," Tony said.

"Unless he tells us," Kate said.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"Where was he that night?" she asked.

"Don't know."

"We never asked because we weren't thinking about him as a suspect, until yesterday," Tony said.

"We should ask. If he was at the river, killing Mary, he couldn't be anywhere else, no matter _where_ he was supposed to be."

A door opened and Rachel came out, alone. She raised her eyebrow, surprised to see them all there.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"How's Tim?" Kate asked.

Rachel sighed a little and waved her hand.

"So-so, at best. Trying to get him through all this chaos isn't easy. If you're taking him with you when you leave here..."

"I am," Gibbs said, firmly.

"Then, you need to know where he'll be staying."

"With me. For now."

"Okay. It probably wouldn't be kosher for him to stay with me as his therapist, anyway. Will there be conflict of interest?"

"He's not a suspect. He's a victim."

"That's fine with me. He may not be the easiest house guest, you know."

"Doesn't matter."

Rachel shook her head. "It _will_ matter, Gibbs. It will matter to you, and it will matter to him. It may not matter enough that you'll change your mind, but you need to acknowledge that this isn't going to be simple."

"Any suggestions?"

"I can't be certain. My work with Tim is still too new. You'll be taking him out of the world he knows and putting him somewhere completely unfamiliar. While he hates Hazard, and always has, it's also the only thing he knows. Changes have not been good for him, and he may have trouble accepting this as a good thing. You just need to be ready for him to react in strange ways. No matter what, it's going to take a long time for him to get through all of this."

Gibbs raised an eyebrow. "I wasn't planning on rushing him."

Rachel smiled.

"Where is he, now?" Tony asked.

"Sleeping...maybe. He said he was tired, and that's possible given all that happened. I got permission for him to stay in that room for a little while. Have you all found something?"

"Yes," Tony and Kate said in unison.

Gibbs looked at them with the same raised eyebrow.

"Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else, Boss," Tony suggested.

Gibbs silently looked at them all, deciding what should come next. Then, he nodded.

"I'm going to go talk to Stan. You get whatever we need to take with us back to the capital."

"Including Tim?" Tony asked.

Gibbs nodded.

"Right."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim wasn't sleeping. He was just lying on the bed. He was tired, yes, but he did not want to go to sleep, right now. There was too much that he might start thinking about to let himself sleep. His mind kept going back to what he had told Gibbs, how easy it was for him to see that in his head, over and over again, how much he hated that it was still there in spite of all the effort he'd made to stop thinking about it, to make it go away.

What to do. Tim didn't know. It was just the same things over and over again. Nothing really seemed to change. He'd hit rock bottom and never climbed up.

There was a quiet knock on the door. He sat up, worried about who it might be.

"Yes?"

The door creaked open and Tony stuck his head in.

"Hey, Tim. It's just me. Did I wake you up?"

"No."

"Well, Gibbs says you're coming back with us. Is there anything you need to get? Hey, what about your new clothes?"

Tim shrugged and then shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I've gone days without changing clothes. It's not a big deal."

"Yes, it is," Tony said, seriously. "We'll swing by Ducky's place and see if anything can be salvaged. If not, we're going to get you some new clothes."

"Why?" Tim asked, feeling his brow furrow. "It's just clothes. It doesn't matter."

"It's not just clothes," Tony said. He walked over and sat down. "Tim, in any other situation, you'd be some wealthy computer magnate or the next Bill Gates or whatever. Maybe you wouldn't be the height of fashion, but you're the kind of guy who shouldn't be in a situation where you don't think it's a problem to be wearing the same clothes for days at a time. I'm not the most sensitive guy in the world, but I can't let you keep thinking that this is the way things have to be. And I don't have to; so if you're ready, we'll go and see if you need more clothes."

"I can't pay for them."

"I didn't say you'd have to."

"I don't want to..." Tim looked away, embarrassed. It was one thing to accept help from Ducky. He, at least, _knew_ Ducky pretty well. Tony was a virtual stranger.

"When you get a good job, you can pay me back, then," Tony said with a grin.

Tim found himself smiling back, just a little. There was something about Tony that could be really annoying, but at the same time, it was nice of him, even if a little clunky. Tim just couldn't let himself trust so easily.

"You ready to leave?"

"No," Tim said, honestly. "And yes."

Another smile. "I get that part, even if I don't get all of it. You left once for a bad reason. You can leave again for a good one."

"What's the reason?" Tim asked.

"So that you can live a real life, the one you deserve."

"How do _you_ know what I deserve?" Tim asked. "You don't really know me."

"Because I know that no one deserves to live like you have been. That makes it easy."

Tony stood up and gestured for Tim to follow him. Tim got up and hesitated. Leaving with these people wasn't just leaving Hazard. It would change everything. Whether that would be for the better or not was something Tim couldn't say for sure, and he was afraid of putting himself in a situation he couldn't control. Maybe he would find he really _hadn't_ hit rock bottom. Maybe there was still further he could fall and leaving Hazard would just bring that on.

Tony just gestured again.

"Come on, Tim. No reason to hang out here."

"Okay."

Tim nodded and followed Tony out of the room. Kate was standing, waiting for them.

"We off?" she asked.

"Yep," Tony said. "Just have to swing by Ducky's place to see if there are any salvageable clothes for Tim. Then, we get Gibbs and head out."

"Sounds good."

Tim found it strange how normal they were both acting. He couldn't help but wonder if they were only pretending.

Still, he didn't feel like he had anywhere else to go; so he followed them out of the hospital, unsure of what he was getting into.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs headed over to the police station, knowing that Stan would be there, no matter how tired he was.

Sure enough, as soon as Gibbs stepped in, he saw Stan, hard at work, giving instructions to Ned and another officer. He looked up and smiled at Gibbs.

"Okay. Let me know if you hear anything. Ned, you make sure that Paul remembers he's coming in to make a full statement. Get him to commit to a time. Lance, check with Harry and see if there's anything unexpected with the fire. We have witnesses and it seems pretty clear cut, but it's best to cover all our bases."

Both of the officers nodded and went about their business.

"Hey, Boss. You find McGee?"

"Yeah. He thought Ducky was dead when he pulled him out. Panicked and ran out of town."

"Must have been bad to get him to leave. Where is he, now?"

"At the hospital. We're taking him with us."

Stan nodded. "That's fine by me. I don't think he's guilty of any crime, and it's not like he can stay in Ducky's place for the next few days."

Gibbs glanced at the empty sheriff's office with a raised eyebrow and Stan smiled.

"I never _wanted_ to be the guy in charge, you know," he said.

"You're just too good at it," Gibbs said.

"Yeah...until I have a meltdown from the stress. Ned told me about your wanting to talk to his mother about Margaret McGee. What's up?"

"Got a question for _you_ , first," Gibbs said.

"Sure, okay." Stan gestured and sat down.

Gibbs followed suit.

"What's your question?"

"Was Sheriff Drake supposed to be on duty the night that Mary was killed?"

Stan was no fool. Gibbs could see that he knew _exactly_ why the question was being asked.

"Yes," Stan said. "He's the sheriff. He's on every night. He'd take the day off occasionally, but Sheriff Drake has always been devoted to being on hand for everything."

"So, where was he that night?"

"Not in the station, I can tell you that much, but beyond that, I can't say for sure. One of the things I do agree with him on is that he didn't want the cops to be holed up in this building, only being seen at a crime scene or accident. We're a part of the community and we should be seen in the community."

"No particular patrols?"

"No, there are, but I don't think Alan really followed one, generally. He went wherever."

"Any security cameras?"

Stan actually laughed. "Around here? Come on, Gibbs. This isn't the big city. The school has some cameras because of liability worries, and I know that Paul got one camera for the back corner of the store where he can't see the delinquents who want to try and shoplift something. Beyond that? Not a chance."

Gibbs nodded. He'd known it was unlikely, but stranger things had happened.

"How likely is this, Gibbs?"

"You tell me."

With a hint of a challenge in his eyes, Stan shook his head. "No. You have something in mind. You're starting to put things together. I remember what you're like, Gibbs. I _know_ that Tim accused the sheriff, but he also forgot that he was in the present and is more than a little out there. So, tell me. Is this just poking the sleeping bear because Alan kind of deserves it or do you really have something?"

"Sheriff Drake didn't only stalk Mary."

"Who else?"

"Margaret McGee. We found photos of her on his computer. We know he was paying her for sex until she ended it. That's why she moved here."

Stan sat back in his chair. " _Alan_? Straight-laced, no-fun Alan Drake? You've got to be kidding."

"No. Near as we can tell he paid the fine that was charged to her when she was arrested for prostitution before moving to Hazard."

"So he was going to her before. You said near as you can tell?"

"Father's name was signed and it was paid in cash. No credit trail, but his father was in a nursing home at the time."

"And unlikely to be showing up at a police station to pay a fine for a prostitute. How much was it?"

"Thousand dollars. She claimed hardship, that she couldn't afford to pay the fine."

"So he did...and then, later, she moved here?"

"Ned's mother knew about it. Heard them talking one day. We found a contract in Margaret McGee's bedroom. Wouldn't hold up in court, but there's no reason to question it. If no one knows where the sheriff was on that night, he doesn't have an alibi, but we do have a pattern of aberrant behavior and we know that Mary was afraid of him as recently as the night before her death."

"How?"

"She kept a diary. Her dad gave it to me."

Stan leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head, clearly surprised.

"That's still circumstantial...but it's a _lot_ of circumstance. When you add in his trying to kill me and his assault on Tim. Plus, his irrational actions during the investigation... But why kill Mary?"

"We don't know that, but we do know that she was afraid he might hurt her when he saw her wearing Tim's scarf that night."

"Tim." Stan shook his head. "I know it's not his fault, but bad things sure do happen around him, don't they."

Gibbs nodded. It was true. Innocent or guilty, a lot of death and loss had happened around him and _to_ him.

"Okay. So what now?"

"Now, I need to know the last time he was definitely seen before her death and the first time, after."

Stan nodded and started to think.

"I'll have to ask the officer who was on duty here for sure. I was in and out myself for part of the day. That would be Dwayne Wilson. New guy. We just hired him last year when old Jenkins retired. But _I_ saw Alan around...four or five in the afternoon that day."

"Did he seem different?"

"Well, he was still upset about people knowing what his son had been doing with Mary. Legal or not, Alan, Jr. is just a little too open about his sex life, and Alan has always been really uptight about people thinking he's done something wrong."

"Maybe because he _was_."

"Yeah, maybe," Stan agreed. "But I can't say that he was really a whole lot different, but I'd say he definitely hadn't killed her at that point...if he did."

He then, looked back toward the front desk.

"Wilson!" he called. "Need you back here!"

"Coming!"

Officer Dwayne Wilson came back. He looked young and nervous, even moreso than Ned, but he definitely trusted Stan, Gibbs could see. Stan had always had that effect on people.

"You were at the desk the night that Mary disappeared, weren't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"When was the last time Sheriff Drake checked in before dark?" he asked.

As with Stan, Dwayne wasn't stupid, and he understood where the questions were headed, but he just answered them.

"He came in once around five. I think you were at your desk, then," he said.

"I was."

"He didn't stay long, and then, he went back out. I asked him if he was headed anywhere in particular, just in case something came up. He said he was just going on patrol and he'd be back by nine."

"Was he? I left early that night."

Dwayne nodded. "I didn't see him at all in between and I didn't hear anything from him on the radio, either."

"What about when he came back?" Gibbs asked.

Dwayne hesitated for a moment.

"Well?" Stan asked.

"He seemed a little wound up when he came back. I asked him if something had happened on patrol, and he said no. I could tell he didn't want any questions; so I didn't ask anything else. I figured he was still ticked off at Alan for being caught with Mary. He stayed in his office until Mary's dad called to ask us to look for her. That's when I called you back in and we started looking."

"He never checked in, not once in four hours?" Stan asked.

"No. I did call him once, but he didn't answer."

"What time was that?" Gibbs demanded.

"Uh...I don't remember. I can check the log."

Gibbs saw Stan suppress a smile. Keeping a log of communication was great, but there were probably a lot of cops who wouldn't bother, especially not for the boss. Dwayne came back in with a log book.

"I checked on him at 8:32 p.m."

"Did you ask him where he was when he came back?" Stan asked.

Dwayne shook his head again. "Nope. He didn't want to chat and since he was obviously fine, I didn't worry about it."

"Okay. Thanks, Dwayne."

Dwayne nodded and went back to the front desk.

"No contact between five and nine," Stan said. "Her dad reported her missing around ten. That's when I came back. I left around six or seven. Things were quiet. Man, Gibbs. I hate that you could be right. I've never liked Alan all that much because, even at the best of times, he's kind of abrasive, but I never thought that he could be this kind of person. But in the last week, he's shown something completely different, and he tried to kill me. I remember seeing him. I remember him coming at me. That shed was his. Those pictures were his. And you found others. I think you're right. I think it was him. I just don't know why."

"Jealousy," Gibbs said.

"Of whom? Tim?"

"Yes, and his own son. If he was really obsessed with Mary, then, he'd be furious that someone else got to her."

"And that she clearly had an attachment to Tim," Stan said, nodding. "If this is true, though, Gibbs, how do we prove it? Alan not answering his radio isn't enough. His being out of contact for four hours isn't enough, although it gets rid of any firm alibi."

"We'll figure it out."

"But you want me to ask around, don't you."

"Yep."

"I will."

"Thanks."

"I wish I thought you were wrong, Gibbs," Stan said. "Hazard isn't perfect and you've seen that in the worst way, but really, by and large, this is a nice little town and I've hated seeing things go so wrong."

"For some people, they've always been wrong," Gibbs said.


	33. Chapter 33

**Chapter 33**

When they pulled up to Ducky's house, Tony hoped that the clothes were still usable. No, it wouldn't be the end of the world and they could buy more, but he just wanted something to go right for Tim. He wanted Tim to have the clothes Tony had picked out and know that his life could get better. ...as silly as that sounded in his own head.

"Where did you have them, last, Tim?" Tony asked.

"In the bathroom, I think," Tim said.

"Well, then, they might have made it," Kate said, with an encouraging smile.

Tony caught her eye and he knew she was thinking the same thing he was.

 _Please, let the clothes have survived._

"I'll go in and check," she said and hurried into the house.

Tim stood, seeming completely unconcerned about what Kate might find. Instead, he looked at the boarded-up windows and the unmistakable signs of a fire. Tony understood why clothing might seem meaningless in that context, but at the same time, it _did_ matter.

Soon, Kate came back out with a wide smile on her face. She held up a large bag.

"Doesn't look like they got touched!" she said.

"Excellent!" Tony said. "Then, we can let you shower and stuff before we go. Why don't we stop at Stan's place?"

Tim shook his head. "He won't want me in his house. No one does."

"Stan won't care, but we can stop by and pick up Gibbs at the station. I'm sure Stan'll be there and we can ask him."

"Okay."

They drove over, and Tony wished that he could have talked to Stan in advance, without Tim there, but he really didn't think Stan would care. He just might not think to act interested in it one way or another, and Tony wanted to change that perception.

Still, there was no way to avoid it; so he just headed to the police station.

When they got there, Gibbs and Stan were out on the sidewalk, talking. Tony rolled down the window.

"Hey, Stan. Can Tim use your shower before we go? He needs to change."

"Sure. No problem. The door should be open. I have some spare towels you can use," he said, nodding to Tim.

"Thanks. Boss, you want to hang out here or come, now?" Tony asked.

Gibbs shook Stan's hand and then walked over to the car. Tony got the message and moved into the back seat by Tim, leaving the driver's seat open for Gibbs.

Tim didn't say a word, but it was clear that he was surprised at Stan's easy agreement. They headed to Stan's place and when they walked into the house, Tim seemed almost tentative, as if he couldn't believe he was welcome to go inside.

"The bathroom is right back there, Tim," Kate said. "There's no rush. Here are your clothes."

Tim nodded, and there was almost a sense of reverence as he took them. For all that he was ambivalent about accepting them, Tony could see how much they meant to him. Something as simple as a new outfit was so out of the norm for Tim that he was amazed by the possibility. He went into the bathroom and closed the door. As soon as it was clear that Tim was showering, Tony looked at Gibbs.

"Where is he going to be while we're recapping what we know, Boss?" he asked. "We don't want him hearing all that, yet, do we?"

"No."

"We could let Abby meet him," Kate said with a bit of a smile. "She'd be so excited that she'd smother him."

Tony laughed. "Yeah, and that wouldn't make Tim uncomfortable at _all_."

"Seriously, though. Rachel has already headed back. She could talk with him while we're coordinating everything we know."

Gibbs nodded, and Tony could see that there was something Gibbs knew about Tim that had got to him, just a little. Just like Mary's diary had affected Gibbs to some degree, he had learned something about Tim that had done the same thing.

The water went off which meant the end of the conversation. Tim had shown a willingness to eavesdrop and since they _were_ talking about him, it would probably be better to avoid these topics for the time being. A couple of minutes later, Tim was out of the bathroom. His hair still needed a trim (or more than a trim), but he was wearing clean clothes, and he seemed different in them, as if they gave him more than just a covering.

"You ready to go, Tim?" Gibbs asked.

Tim looked uncertain, but he nodded. A fear of the unknown or just awkwardness about being with people he barely knew? Tony couldn't tell, but he was sure that this was for the best.

"Then, let's get going."

They walked out to the car, and Tony decided to be magnanimous and let Tim have the front seat. Tim didn't thank him, but he probably wasn't even thinking about the seating arrangements. Instead, he sat silently with that blank expression that meant he was worried at the very least.

As they drove beyond the city limits, Tim got tense for a moment. Then, he looked back at the town he was leaving behind. He met Tony's gaze for a moment then looked away.

"Will you miss it, Tim?" Kate asked.

"No. I hate it. Everything about it," Tim said, almost instantly. Then, he sighed a little. "...except Ducky."

"You'll miss him," Kate said.

"Yeah."

He seemed almost reluctant to admit it.

"Well, you can invite him to come and see you. I'm sure he'd be happy to."

Tim shook his head. "He's probably glad I'm gone. Most people are glad when I'm gone."

"Not Ducky," Tony said. "Well, he's probably glad that you're getting away from Hazard for _your_ sake, but I'll bet he's going to miss you, too."

"You don't have to try to make me feel better, Agent DiNozzo," Tim said. "You really can't."

Tony grinned. "Doesn't stop me from trying."

Tim glanced at him in the rearview mirror and Tony saw him almost smile.

"How long do you keep trying?"

"Oh, as long as I feel like it."

"I'll remember that."

Tim fell silent again and looked forward as Hazard was left further and further behind. When they reached the capital, Tim's eyes widened.

"Wow," he said softly.

"What?" Kate asked.

"This is...a lot bigger than Hazard."

"Most places are," Tony said. "But Lincoln is far from the biggest city in the world."

"I've never been to anything bigger," Tim said, his voice soft.

"Is it a good thing or a bad thing?" Tony asked.

"I don't know."

Gibbs drove them to the SBI headquarters, parked and looked at Tim.

"What's this place?"

"Headquarters. We have work to do."

They all got out. Tim followed suit, although he lagged a little behind the others.

"What am _I_ doing here?" Tim asked.

Tony could hear how uncertain Tim was. He clearly had no idea where he was, what he was supposed to be doing.

"We need to finish out the day," Kate said. "Rachel is inside, waiting for you. But we'll have someplace for you to wait if you need to. Don't worry."

Tim nodded mutely.

They walked inside and, perhaps unfortunately, they were not greeted by Rachel.

They were greeted by Abby in all her frenetic glory.

"Guys! Rachel told me you were coming back and that you were bringing..." She stopped when she saw Tim standing uncomfortably behind the others. "Tim McGee! I'm so excited to meet you!"

Tim literally took a step back, his eyes wide.

"You are? Why?"

"Dial it down, Abby," Tony said. He kept his voice light but there was a real warning in his eyes. "Tim is still adjusting to being out of Hazard."

Abby raised her eyebrow at him, but she nodded, taking the warning seriously.

"Okay, okay. I've been doing a lot of research for this case, and it's always nice to meet the person behind what I've been reading," she said, more calmly, but still smiling widely. "I don't usually get to do that."

"And that's a good thing?" Tim asked.

"Meeting you is a very good thing," she said. "Actually...well, anyway, I'm glad to see you here and not just in a picture."

She was clearly bursting with news but had just enough tact not to talk about it in front of Tim.

"If you have time to kill, you can always come to my lab. I think you'd have fun, especially if you're a computer guy. I've got toys."

"I'll...keep that in mind," Tim said, but there was still that wary expression on his face, and no wonder. Abby was probably not at all what he could have expected or imagined.

"I think Rachel will be in one of the conference rooms," Kate said. "Come on, Tim. Let's see if we can find her."

"Sure...okay."

Tim and Kate walked away from the awkward scene, leaving Gibbs, Abby and Tony behind.

"So that's him, huh? He almost looks normal," Abby said once they were out of earshot.

"Almost?" Tony asked.

"Yeah. Normal except for that deer-in-the-headlights look," she said, demonstrating what she meant with her eyes wide open. "He was afraid of me, almost. ...and I'm not scary."

"Yeah, so you say," Tony said.

Abby scrunched up her face and stuck her tongue out at him and then looked at Gibbs.

"I found something. Or...I found some _one_ , but I figured it would be best not to tell Tim about it, yet. Until we decide what to do about it."

"Who and what does it have to do with Tim?" Tony asked.

Gibbs headed for the bullpen, forcing the other two to follow along. Tony could see that Abby wanted to share her momentous news when she had Gibbs' full attention. He was curious, though, about what she might have found that would have her so giddy. Kate rejoined them by the time they got there.

"Who did you find, Abby?" Gibbs asked.

Abby brought up a picture on the screen.

"I found Tobias Fornell!"

Tony's brow furrowed. "Who's that?"

Abby sighed at the interruption. "He happens to be Tim's uncle! ...well, by marriage. Remember how I said that I was hoping to find some relative who could swoop in and save the day?"

"Yeah, and you didn't find that."

"I know. I didn't, but that's partly because Tim's dad's family gets a little complicated. So Tim's grandparents divorced not long before Tim's dad was killed. Tim's dad was the oldest. There are three brothers. One died of cancer about ten years ago. The other two are still alive but have never had anything to do with Tim, and I wasn't thinking that we needed to contact them since they would have nothing to do with the case, either. I actually found a record stating that Louis McGee agreed with the suspicions about Tim setting the fire. So I don't know if we _want_ them around. I'll let you decide about that, Gibbs."

Gibbs just nodded mutely and gestured for her to go on.

"Tim's grandmother remarried, and the man she married had a daughter that she is listed as the legal guardian of. The daughter, Diane, married...Tobias Fornell."

"So why is this the great and wonderful relative? He's _not_ a relative at all, and the woman he's married to isn't a relative at all, either," Tony said.

"Because of what put him on my radar in the first place, Tony," Abby said. She flicked the picture of Tobias Fornell away and brought up a form.

"What's this?"

"It's a request form for information about Lt. John McGee, his ex-wife Margaret McGee _and_ son, Tim McGee. He's looking for them...or at least for Margaret and Tim. I would assume he knows that John McGee is dead. That would be easy to find. And he just started doing this a couple of days ago...and he has the connections to find him, eventually."

"What connections?" Gibbs asked.

"He works for the FBI. Based in DC."

"Why would he be looking for them, now?" Kate asked. "What reason could he have?"

"Well, I wondered that, too," Abby said. "It turns out that Tim's grandmother was alive...until two weeks ago. I found her obituary."

"That's quite the coincidence, isn't it," Kate said. "Maybe there was some regret. Maybe even guilt."

"And if she did feel that way, what better person to start looking than her son-in-law who works for the FBI?" Tony said. "The question is, though, what's going to be his purpose and what will he do when he finds Tim McGee as he is? If he has no real connection, then, there will be nothing to keep him around and that would be awful for Tim."

Kate nodded. "Yeah. Even if we do contact him, we shouldn't tell Tim about it until we know for sure what his intentions are."

Tony looked at Gibbs. They'd gone through everything, said everything they had to say, brought up the problems they could see. Now, it was his turn.

"Call him," Gibbs said. "Tell him what we know, but don't let him know exactly where Tim is. We need to know more about _him_ , first."

"And Tim?" Abby asked.

"He doesn't know about it until we know more."

She nodded. "I'll try to keep my mouth shut if he comes to the lab."

"Do that."

"Okay, Boss. Now, what?" Tony asked.

"Tell me everything you found."


	34. Chapter 34

**Chapter 34**

Rachel watched as Tim sat nervously on a chair. He was looking around the room with more than a little trepidation.

"How are you feeling, Tim?" she asked.

"I don't know," he said. "Not right."

"Why not?"

"It doesn't make any sense."

"Tell me," Rachel said, trying to encourage him to open up.

"I don't really...know where I am. I mean...I _know_. I didn't forget leaving and coming here. I learned geography and all that, but...I feel like..."

Tim sighed as he tried to find words for his feeling. Rachel didn't push him, but she didn't help him, either. She didn't want to manipulate his emotions by saying what she _thought_ he was feeling. There was value in the struggle itself.

"I feel like...I'm nowhere."

Rachel waited to see if he'd say more.

"I'm afraid of being here."

"What scares you?"

"I don't know what to expect," Tim said. "I don't really...know these people. I barely know you. I do appreciate that...that you're all trying to help me, but this is all so different, and what I had before wasn't great, don't get me wrong, but at least, I knew it. I knew what to expect. It was all bad, but I still knew. Now, I don't know, and I don't feel like I can be...confident that anything will be good."

"You shouldn't count on _everything_ being good, but you can count on _some_ things being good."

Tim looked at her.

"You still haven't asked me about what I told Agent Gibbs."

"Do you _want_ me to?"

"I just don't understand why you haven't."

Rachel smiled. "Because you have already had a lot to deal with that has to do with Mary's death. I don't need you to overload yourself unless you think you're ready for it." She paused. "Are you?"

Tim looked down.

"You don't always have to feel overwhelmed, Tim. Most people don't have that feeling all the time. Let yourself accept that some things might get better."

"And when that's wrong?" Tim asked.

"It doesn't have to be."

"What's going to happen?"

"Tonight, you'll be staying with Agent Gibbs."

"Doesn't that seem weird?"

"I can see that it does to you. Why?"

"Because he doesn't know me. Not really. I'm just part of a case. Why would he do all this?"

"Because he thinks it's worth it to try, no matter how awkward it might be."

"For how long, though? How long before he gets tired of it or he decides that it's better to kick me out? How long until he decides that his life would be a lot easier if I wasn't in it?"

Something about the way Tim said that made Rachel think that he was quoting someone.

"Has someone told you that, Tim?"

Tim looked away again, a sure sign that, exact quote or not, Tim was expressing something he believed someone felt about him or something he had heard from someone. Given the attitudes of people in Hazard, she wouldn't be surprised if someone had been callous enough to say that to him.

"How much longer will they be?" he asked.

"I don't know. It could be a while."

"Do I have to talk to you until they're done?"

Rachel suppressed a smile at the question, even if she didn't blame him for not wanting to deal with all this for a long period.

"No. Not at all. Would you like to be done for now?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Do you have...a pencil?"

"I don't, but I'm sure I can find one for you, Tim. I'll be right back. Now, because this is a government building, you're not allowed to wander around on your own. You'll need to stay in here until they're done or let them know that you want to walk around. Otherwise, just relax."

Tim nodded, although she questioned that he'd really be able to relax. Tim was stressed and worried. He wasn't going to be relaxed for days, most likely. Maybe longer.

Rachel found a pencil and brought it back to Tim. He pulled out the two pages he had kept from his sketchpad and turned one over to start a new drawing. Rachel watched him for a moment, wanting to ask what he was drawing this time, but instead, she decided to let him have some time alone.

She went back to the bullpen and saw the team all talking intently.

"What have you figured out?" she asked.

"That the sheriff has no alibi for the night Mary was killed," Kate said. "That he was paying Margaret McGee for sex when she first moved to Hazard."

"And that Mary was afraid the sheriff was going to hurt her," Tony added.

Rachel blinked in surprise. "Wow. How did you get all that?"

"Talking to Stan, a contract in the McGee home, corroboration from Ned Dorneget's mother and Mary's diary."

"So what happens, now?"

"Now, we figure out how to make the sheriff admit it," Kate said. "Everything we learn about him shows someone who has little control over himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he could be goaded into saying something."

"You're probably right, but he's also smart enough to keep everything hidden. He has for years."

"How's Tim?" Tony asked.

"Afraid and uncertain. He doesn't feel any security in his position here. It's completely new and he doesn't have anyone he really knows well. He has no reason to trust any of us, not all the way. The longer he goes without having something going wrong, the more he'll be willing to trust. I think he wants to, but he doesn't know how to let himself after so many disappointments." Rachel looked at Gibbs. "And if you don't have to stay late, I think you should get him out of here because this is so outside his realm of experience that he doesn't know what to do about it."

Gibbs only nodded, not that Rachel expected any more than that from him.

"I've left him drawing in the conference room. If you don't have any other use for me, I'm going to head home."

"Go ahead."

"You want me back tomorrow?"

Another nod.

"Okay."

Rachel left them to their work and drove home, thinking about Tim's situation. It had changed radically in very little time, and she'd be surprised if he managed to remain calm about it. Gibbs was more than capable of helping when needed. It was just a matter of whether or not he'd taken her warning seriously.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Stan looked at his list of people. He wasn't looking forward to it. He still had a headache, and there was enough uncertainty in Hazard right now that he little relished upsetting anyone. However, Tim was no longer here. They had already destroyed the only thing of worth he owned. Ducky's home had been damaged and Ducky himself was in the hospital. He still hated all that had happened. Before this, he would never have thought that the people in Hazard would be so violent. One reason for that was their general lack of urgency when it came to anything. They weren't lazy so much as content with what they had.

At the same time, he couldn't forget what Gibbs had said. For some people Hazard had always been wrong.

Really, just one person.

Tim McGee.

Determined now, Stan slid the list of people he wanted to ask about Sheriff Drake to the side. It was important to find out if there was anything to Gibbs' suspicions, but he wanted to let the people of Hazard know just how wrong they had been. Even those who had done nothing were generally complicit. Oh, there were people like Ned and even Stan himself who had not held Tim's strangeness against him, but even they had done nothing to make Tim's life easier, and it probably would have been relatively easy to do. When everything was bad, even the slightest bit of good would have made things better.

He turned to his computer and opened up a word processor. Hazard didn't have a regular newspaper as such. Their newspaper was regional, but it was common to spread news around via flyers, and Stan was going to do that. He'd get Rudy in the post office to distribute it on his route. Everyone would see it. They may not choose to accept it, but he didn't care about that.

 _I have to do something to make up for what I haven't done._

Tim would likely never come back here. There was nothing to keep him here, and he certainly hadn't enjoyed his time living here. That didn't matter. What mattered was letting people know how bad this had become. They couldn't learn from it unless they acknowledged that it had happened. Nodding to himself, Stan started to type. He wasn't the most eloquent guy, but he knew how to be blunt.

 _To Whom It May Concern (and that means everyone):_

 _Over the last few days, Hazard has been in a state of upheaval, with the murder of Mary Fields being the catalyst. Many in this town have laid the blame on Tim McGee. A group of you even took it upon yourselves to destroy his home. Another tried to kill him while he was in Ducky's house, leading to Ducky himself being injured and his house damaged. Each of these things is a crime._

 _This is all wrong, and you all know it. Whether you participated in any of these events or not, you have been complicit in the attitude that led to this being accepted._

 _All of you know that I am not originally from Hazard. One of the reasons I wanted to be here was because of the people I have come to know. I would never have thought that the good people of this town would be involved so much casual cruelty. It is shocking and disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourselves._

 _I can't completely excuse myself because I am guilty of letting things remain as they were when I came. Tim McGee has done nothing to anyone in this town. His only crime was being different. Perhaps his differences are extreme, but even so, he did not hurt anyone. He never asked for help. He never came where he was not wanted. And yet, he was treated as if he was lower than dirt. This is shameful, something that none of us should have accepted and yet all of us did._

 _At this point, Sheriff Drake has been arrested for assault. He tried to kill me. He will also be charged with stalking Mary Fields. His son, Alan, has also been arrested for attempting to kill Tim McGee and for assault on Ducky. I have not yet found out who burned down the McGee home, but if I ever do, they will also be charged. Notice the one person who has not committed a crime: Tim McGee. No evidence ties him to any crime. None._

 _If you haven't already, I encourage you to do some soul-searching. Think about what you did or were willing to let others do. Think about how you have treated a fellow human being. Learn from this terrible situation and don't let it happen again._

 _I am not the sheriff. I am only a deputy. You will have the chance to choose your next sheriff, but until that happens, I will do my best to uphold the law in and around Hazard. I will not look the other way if anyone tries to take the law into their own hands again._

 _Deputy Stan Burley_

Stan sat back and looked at the message. Was it enough? Probably not. However, it was a start and a start had to be made. He printed a copy of it and then turned back to his list.

He'd drop it off for photocopying while he went around to talk to people in town.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Okay. Go home," Gibbs said. "We're back at this tomorrow."

"Early?" Tony asked.

Gibbs thought about it for a moment. Then, he shook his head.

"No. On time."

Tony grinned. "Sounds good."

He packed up his stuff and headed out. Abby dashed off to grab her things, but Kate lingered for a few seconds.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow at her.

"Gibbs, what's coming next? Where are we focusing our attention?"

"We get as much as we can and _then_ we confront Sheriff Drake. Not until then. He needs to see that we're onto him, but we aren't unless we have everything we can get."

Kate nodded, but she was somewhat reluctant. She wanted to get moving because she hated knowing that someone wasn't getting what he deserved, especially someone like Sheriff Drake who had used his position to harm others.

"He's not getting away with it," Gibbs said.

Another nod and Kate left.

Now, it was time to take on the next challenge. He knew Rachel suspected he wouldn't be taking this seriously, but he was. After what Tim had told him, Gibbs was taking it very seriously. He wasn't sure exactly what would be best to do, but he was taking on this responsibility because he was not letting Tim get left behind yet again.

He didn't know how hard it would be, but he didn't care. Under no circumstances was Tim going to be allowed to be lost. He didn't care how much effort it took. He didn't care how long. If he had to have Tim moving into his home permanently, he would. With every hit that Tim had taken in his life, it was going to take real determination to keep him from falling. While Gibbs knew he couldn't change the way things had been in the past, all the times that Tim had been let down or been traumatized by something awful, but he could make sure that Tim's present and future were as good as they could possibly be.

Anything to remove that haunted look in Tim's eyes.

He walked over to the conference room and knocked to keep from startling Tim too much. Then, he opened the door.

...and he smiled. Tim was asleep, his head pillowed in his arms. He was even snoring. While he knew that this didn't mean things were good, it was almost a relief to see that Tim could calm down enough to fall asleep in a foreign place. It was shame to wake him, but he couldn't sleep here.

He walked over to the table and shook Tim gently. He sat up with a start and looked around, blearily.

"Tim?"

Then, it seemed to dawn on him that he wasn't in Hazard and he looked at Gibbs with something akin to fear. It lasted for just too long and then, it was gone. Hidden as so many of Tim's emotions were.

"Agent Gibbs," he said softly.

"You ready to go?"

Tim nodded, but he was wary. Nothing to be done about that yet. It would take time.

"Let's go, then."

"Okay."

Tim picked up a couple of pieces of paper with drawings on them and followed him, but whenever Gibbs glanced at him, he could see Tim's eyes moving around constantly, taking in the sights around him, unsure of where he was or what he should do.

Gibbs led him out to his car. Tim said nothing, but very little was escaping his notice. Gibbs gestured and Tim got in.

Gibbs debated trying to talk but decided that, for now, silence was better. He stopped and picked up something quick for dinner, but they didn't linger. Gibbs just drove them to his house out in the suburbs. He could have sold it. He didn't need the space, but he didn't want to give up his basement.

"This is it," he said as he pulled into the driveway.

"You live here?" Tim asked, his eyes wide.

"Yeah."

"Just you?"

"Yeah."

"It's...huge."

Gibbs smiled a little. It wasn't really very large, but compared to most of the houses in Hazard, it was probably a little bigger. Certainly, it was a _lot_ bigger than Tim's house had been.

"Bigger than where you lived."

"Yeah. Are you sure you want me here?"

"Yes."

They got out of the car and Gibbs led Tim inside.

"You want the couch?" he asked.

Tim glanced over at Gibbs, clearly wondering if he was going to force him to take a bedroom.

"You can have it," Gibbs said. "I have a spare room."

"No."

"Okay. Couch is yours."

"Okay."

Gibbs left Tim to adjust to this new situation. He wasn't sure what would cause the most problems for Tim right now, but he guessed that he'd find out.


	35. Chapter 35

**Chapter 35**

Tim sat on the couch and looked around the room. Just this one room was probably at least the same size as his whole house had been. Ducky's house had been bigger than his own, but something about Gibbs' house just seemed huge. Maybe it was just a perception thing. Maybe it was because he felt so out of place.

 _Why am I here?_

Hazard hadn't been good, not at all, but it had been home. Now, he had left it. He didn't want to go back, but what was waiting for him here? His only experience with something outside of Hazard had been when his mother had...

Abruptly, he stopped his thoughts. He didn't want to go back to that again. He stood up and started pacing, wondering when this antsy feeling would leave. Maybe it had been a mistake to let the agents take him with them. Maybe he shouldn't have left. Hazard was all he had.

 _And all you had was horrible._

Tim took a breath and forced himself to sit down.

He wondered where Gibbs had gone. There was a set of stairs going up. (A second floor!) However, he didn't remember Gibbs ever going up there. Tim wasn't sure about exploring this house at all. It wasn't his home. It was a foreign place, something he didn't know anything about.

He got up and walked tentatively to a doorway.

A kitchen.

A big one. ...at least, it was big in comparison to his own.

 _I should stop comparing. I know my house is a dump._

It wasn't just the size, though. The whole feeling was different. Tim wasn't sure what it was.

Regardless, the kitchen was empty. Where had Gibbs gone? Tim didn't know and that suddenly made him really nervous. He needed to know where he was. Tim didn't know Gibbs well, but Gibbs was the only slightly-familiar thing in this whole space. For miles around him, there was nothing he knew...except for Gibbs.

The idea made Tim almost terrified. Enough that his reticence vanished and he walked over to a closed door and pulled it open.

There were stairs going down.

Down? Another floor? Gibbs had a second floor _and_ a basement? Because of how close the river was, very few people in Hazard had more than a crawl space. The river didn't flood much, but it kept the water table pretty high. Having a basement was asking for trouble.

Here was yet another level to Gibbs' house. It was like a mansion.

Was Gibbs down these stairs? Tim didn't know, but he had to find out. He pounded down the steps and got to the bottom, only to see Gibbs staring at him with an eyebrow raised.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

There were no words for all that was wrong at this moment, so Tim just shook his head mutely.

Gibbs actually smiled a little and gestured to a stool.

"Have a seat, if you want."

"W-What are you doing?" Tim asked, afraid of asking the question but curious enough to overcome that in the wake of his returning calm.

"Building a boat."

"Why?"

"Why not?"

Tim shrugged.

Gibbs just turned back to his task. Carpentry was one thing Tim knew absolutely nothing about. The tools Gibbs had were unfamiliar. The shape of the wood was unfamiliar.

More strange things in a crazy world...and yet, these strange things filled him with curiosity instead of fear.

"W-What is that?" he asked, stammering a little. No one had ever liked him asking questions. He had learned to keep his mouth shut, even in the classes he had enjoyed. If he didn't know an answer, he figured it out for himself. Something about Gibbs, even though he was intimidating, made him willing to try asking...although he was still afraid of getting smacked down for it.

Gibbs turned to him again and held out the tool.

"It's called a slick."

Tim reached out, hesitated and then took the strange device in his hands.

"What is it for?"

"Planing the wood, making it consistent and smooth."

"Oh."

Tim looked at it for a few seconds and then handed it back. Gibbs waited, as if to see if Tim would ask anything else, but then, he just turned back to his work.

Tim sat there, unsure of why he felt better, awkwardly sitting here with a near stranger, than he had upstairs alone on the couch.

Still, he also had a question that he ached to ask, but at the same time, he was afraid of getting an answer. The silent minutes ticked by. Gibbs said nothing. Tim said nothing. Finally, though, he couldn't stand it.

"How long will I be here?" he blurted out.

"As long as you need to be," Gibbs said, not even looking up.

"No. That's not a good answer."

"Why not?"

"Because it can't be true."

"Yes, it can. It is."

"You can't really want me here that long."

"Why not?"

"Because no one wants me anywhere for long."

Gibbs put down the slick and looked at Tim.

"As long as you need a place you stay, my home will _always_ be open."

"But why?" Tim asked.

"Because you believe that no one wants you around. Because you believe that you don't matter. Because you believe that nothing can make your life better." Gibbs paused and then skewered him with a look that both heartened Tim and made him afraid. "Because you have lived your life keeping a secret that no child should have to keep. I'll do what it takes to change that."

"You can't change that part," Tim whispered.

"I can't change the past, but I can help you let go of it."

Tim looked away, first, down at the floor and then at the wall.

"I'm...tired."

"Okay."

Tim climbed up the stairs and left the basement, unsure of what to make of Gibbs' declaration. He knew that these people were saying that they cared and that they wanted his life to be better, but this was the first time he'd had someone tell him that his life _would_ be better. What would that mean? Tim had no idea and no idea how to deal with it.

So he didn't.

He changed into sweats and t-shirt and lay down on the couch, hoping that he could fall asleep in this strange house.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs went to bed late, and when he walked by the couch, Tim was asleep. While he little relished having his living room indefinitely taken up by someone, he couldn't force Tim to take a bedroom at this point. Maybe later, after some therapy.

For now, he would just deal with it as long as necessary.

He went upstairs and got in bed. He fell asleep quickly. It had been a long day.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

 _Another nightmare. Tim shrieked and cried for someone to save him from the monster. A year in Hazard had not made anything easier for him._

 _Margaret came in and sat down beside him. It was long after midnight and she was tired. Tim just wanted her to make things better, and he couldn't calm himself down._

" _Tim, I am sick and tired of this. Do you know how much easier everything would be if I didn't have to worry about you, too?"_

 _Tim stopped crying, almost instantly, and he pulled back from his mother, staring at her._

 _Instantly, she shook her head._

" _No, Tim. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. I was just tired and worried. I love you. I really do."_

 _Tim said nothing. He didn't know what to say. He let her hug him and then, he watched as she walked into the bedroom and closed the door._

 _He never called for her again._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim came awake, sobbing. He didn't usually cry in his sleep, but he had this time. He didn't know why.

That feeling of utter isolation and abandonment. It was so strong.

He sat up, trembling and shaking, trying to muffle the sounds he was making, but he couldn't calm himself down. He closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around himself, trying to stop the panic and fear. It always took a long time when he woke up like this.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, there was a hand on his back.

"It's all right, Tim."

Tim shook his head. He didn't speak because he couldn't get any words out.

"It's all right."

The words were comforting, but Tim still couldn't calm himself down. He didn't even know why this was happening _now_ as opposed to at any other time.

None of that really mattered, though. What mattered was that he was still crying and shaking.

"It's all right."

It was interesting, but the simple repetition of that sentence was gradually penetrating the panic and calming him down. He didn't know how long it took, but finally, he opened his eyes. He was still shaking a little, but he felt as though he could control himself.

Tim looked back and saw that Gibbs was sitting beside him.

"S-Sorry," he said.

"Don't apologize."

"W-Why not?"

"Sign of weakness."

"That...f-fits."

"No, it doesn't. What happened?"

"Nothing," Tim said. It was true, too. Nothing had happened. Nothing ever happened. He didn't need something to happen to have a meltdown.

"Tim, what happened?"

Tim looked away. "Just...remembering. Nothing happened."

"What were you remembering?"

"Nothing."

"What?"

"'Do you know how much easier it would be if I didn't have to worry about you,'" Tim whispered with no inflection.

There was a pause.

"Who said that to you?"

"I had a nightmare. I cried."

Another pause.

"Your mother."

"She apologized. She didn't mean it. She was just...frustrated."

"Doesn't matter, does it."

Tim shook his head.

"I'm sorry, Tim."

Tim looked at Gibbs and forced a smile. "Sign of weakness."

Gibbs smiled back at him. "Yep. Nothing wrong with that."

"I don't know why now."

"How did you feel?"

"Alone. Abandoned."

"That's why now."

Tim didn't really follow that, but he didn't want to, either. So he said nothing. He hadn't thought about that night in years. He wished he hadn't remember it, now.

Then, he suddenly realized that Gibbs' hand was still on his back. He tensed and stood up.

Too close.

"You don't have to be here," he said, relieved that his voice sounded almost normal. "It's fine."

"It's not fine. You're not fine, and you know it."

"No, but it's still fine."

"No, it's not."

Tim turned around and looked at Gibbs.

"If I listen to you, I can't deal with the life I have."

"Good. You shouldn't."

"I have to."

"No, you don't."

"My own mother..." Tim couldn't finish the sentence. "She... I..."

"Nothing that your mother might have said to you or done means you deserve this kind of life."

Tim turned away again.

"I can't listen to you. I can't...not when...I just..."

Tim was getting an ever-stronger feeling that, if he let Gibbs tell him about life, he'd only end up even more miserable. The life he had was tolerable simply because it was all he knew. If he started entertaining the possibility of something better, he would only be asking for more pain.

"Whether you can bring yourself to believe me or not, I'm not going to let you keep on in the life you've had. It _will_ get better, and nothing will change that. Not perfect, but better."

"Don't tell me things like that, Agent Gibbs. I don't want to hear them. I don't want to listen."

"Only because you don't know how it could be possible. I don't care about that. I care that you get out of the life you had."

"It doesn't matter what you care about. What matters is that this is my life."

"But it doesn't have to be. You're not going back to Hazard unless you want to visit Dr. Mallard. You're not going to fall through the cracks. You are going to get the help you need and you are going to go up, not down."

Tim felt the tears coming again. He couldn't explain why they were coming this time, but the mess in his brain was so common that he didn't care.

"Don't... Don't say that, Agent Gibbs. Please, don't talk about my life as if it can be good. I can't let myself believe you."

He heard Gibbs stand up.

"Yes, you can."

"No."

There was another pause. Tim wouldn't look at Gibbs.

"You were seven when you moved to Hazard. You were six when your dad left. That's old enough to remember. You were happy before all that."

"So?"

"So you've had good things in your life before. A lot of bad things doesn't negate the good things."

"They were all lies. Not real."

" _You_ were happy."

"So?"

"Whether or not it was real for your parents, it was real for you."

Tim turned back and, for some reason, he was suddenly shouting, as if he could make everything Gibbs said go away by being loud.

"It doesn't matter! None of that matters! All that matters is what I have and that's nothing! Everyone is gone! Everyone leaves! Everyone dies! Nothing good survives! All that matters is death! Death and betrayal and loneliness! Nothing else!" In fact, he realized that he was now nearly screaming at Gibbs. "Life is about death and pain! There's nothing else!"

Then, again, he shifted without really having any control over it and he was sobbing again. He dropped to a chair and covered his face, partially because he was embarrassed about what he was doing and wanted to hide and partially to keep himself from having to see or hear Gibbs again.

And yet, while he was leaning over, bending almost in half, he felt an arm come around his shoulders. Gradually, he could hear the words being said to him. They were the same words as before.

"It's all right, Tim."

No blame. No shock. No anger. Just that little bit of calm reassurance.

"It's all right."

Even though it was a lie, Tim liked hearing that, and part of him wondered if maybe it wasn't a lie, after all.

"It's all right."

The arm tightened just enough to urge him to his feet. He wouldn't look up, wouldn't open his eyes, but he could stand. He stood and was guided to the couch. He sat down on it.

"It's all right."

Then, again for a reason he didn't understand, he spoke the one thing he allowed himself to wish for...perhaps because it was impossible and he knew it. Why not wish for the impossible? At least then, he _knew_ he'd be disappointed.

"I want Mary back," he whispered.

"It's all right."

Just those same words again. The same arm guided him down onto the couch and eased him onto his side. Tim allowed himself to be urged into sleep. He didn't really want to sleep, but at the same time, he was so tired. With his eyes closed, there was no stimulus keeping him awake.

That voice came again.

"It's all right."

He fell asleep.


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 36**

Gibbs sighed as he watched Tim fall asleep, tears still on his cheeks, his breathing shaky and loud. That breakdown had been sudden, as all of Tim's outbursts had been. It wasn't that he hadn't been aware of the potential for it. It was just that it had been much bigger than he had expected. For Tim to shift from just not wanting to hear something he couldn't believe to shouting about how his life was defined by death was not something Gibbs had anticipated.

At the same time, though, it was amazing how quickly Tim had calmed just from being told it was all right. It probably worked because so few people had ever bothered to care about Tim McGee and help him feel better. Was it true? Not yet. Would this calm last? Probably not, but it didn't matter. He had calmed enough to go to sleep and now, Gibbs had to decide what he was going to do: go back to bed or stay here and let Tim have a physical confirmation that not everyone would leave him. Gibbs didn't kid himself that he was that important to Tim, but the sentiment might matter.

Instead of going back to bed, Gibbs settled himself to sleep in the living room. It wouldn't be the first time, but he usually had the couch when he'd slept down here. Still, it would be worth it if it helped Tim see that people cared and wouldn't abandon him.

He got a blanket and settled in for the remainder of the night.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Fornell, you're late," Sacks said.

Fornell furrowed his brow.

"Oh, really? I'm here right on time."

Sacks laughed. "You'd like to think so, but you've already missed a phone call."

"From who?"

"Nebraska State Bureau of Investigation."

"Nebraska?" Fornell repeated. "Why? We're not working any cases involving Nebraska. Not even any that _could_ end up in Nebraska."

"Not a case."

There was only one other reason that someone from the Nebraska SBI would be calling.

"The McGees?"

Sacks grinned. "Got it in...well, in two."

"Where are they?"

"Don't know. They wouldn't tell me."

"Why not?"

"They said that they had to speak to you, first."

Fornell grimaced. "Why in the world would that matter?"

"Well, you could have just found all this stuff yourself if you had been willing to get into the records yourself, but no, you had to do it the long way."

"This is a personal search, not a professional search, Ron."

Sacks shrugged. "Didn't stop you from doing the work here."

Fornell ignored that. "Who called?"

"An Agent Tony DiNozzo. Sounded like he could have just been pulling your chain, but you never know with these state boys."

Fornell sighed. He had almost been willing to make use of FBI resources to do this search since he hadn't got any information without it. To know that there was an answer but that he couldn't get it yet was irritating. Still, the possibility now existed. That mattered.

"All right. You have the number?"

Sacks handed him a sticky note.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, more seriously. "Would you really go out there?"

"Diane's mom really wanted this to happen. Since it was important to her, it's important to Diane. I'll do what I have to."

"How's she doing? Diane, I mean."

"Okay. It was almost a relief when Louisa died. After she got cancer, her life was pretty miserable, and she was the one who decided not to pursue treatment and just take palliative care. Diane accepted it, more or less."

"Well, if you're going to call, you probably should do that before our stimulating conference on workplace behaviors."

"Yeah." Fornell got out his cell phone and dialed the number, wondering what this would lead to.

" _Agent DiNozzo."_

"This is Tobias Fornell," he said, deliberately not identifying himself as an agent. "I had a message from you about the John McGee family."

" _Oh, right. Well, you were the one looking. What do you want?"_

"I want to know where they are, obviously."

" _What for?"_

"I'm not sure I see how this is your business. There's no criminal record for them. I know that much, so I don't know why it would be any concern of the Nebraska SBI."

" _It's not any concern to the SBI, not particularly, but it_ is _a concern to us, and our concern is whether or not you're on the level or if you're just going to find him and then drop him. So if you're serious about this, you can come by our office and talk to Agent Gibbs. He'll make the final decision about whether or not you'll get to talk to...anyone."_

"You realize that I'm in Washington, D.C., not anywhere near Nebraska, right?"

" _Your point?"_

Fornell wanted to tell this agent where to go and how to get there, but this was what Louisa had wanted, and it was what Diane wanted, and he himself was a little intrigued by why it would be such an important thing for him to be there in person. What was it about the McGees that made this vital? And why was the SBI involved at all?

"Fine."

" _Good. Feel free to call when you get here. We may even be in the building. Have a nice day."_

Then, he hung up.

"Well?" Sacks asked.

"He wouldn't tell me anything."

"What? Why would he have called, then?"

"Because they'll tell me if I go out there."

"Are you going to go?"

Fornell pulled up a leave request form on his computer.

"Yes."

"Better you than me. They're called the flyover states for a reason."

"Well, there's something important out there, and if I have to go to Lincoln, Nebraska, to find it, then, I will."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony hung up and leaned back in satisfaction. He didn't know this Tobias Fornell, but if anything would get him to show what he really wanted, that had. This was important enough to him that he was willing to come all the way to Lincoln to find out what was going on. He hoped it boded well, because if it didn't, well then, Tony might have been asking for trouble.

"What are you looking so smug about?" Kate asked.

"Tobias Fornell is going to come out here."

"He is? When did you find this out?"

"I called him this morning. He wasn't there, but he just called back and I wouldn't tell him anything."

"Tony!"

"Hey, we don't want this guy to turn out to be someone trying to get something from Tim or who doesn't really care about him. What better way to find out than to see what he's willing to do?"

"You could have said _something_ to him."

"I did. I said that I wouldn't tell him anything over the phone."

Kate smiled a little and rolled her eyes.

"You're just impressed that I'm so clever. I know."

"Well, maybe you should call Gibbs and tell him how clever you are. I'm going to see if I can figure out how to force Sheriff Drake into confessing."

"Force?"

"Encourage?" Kate suggested.

"You're not looking encouraging, Kate. You're looking vengeful."

All the playfulness vanished, and Kate was looking more than vengeful.

"This man was willing to use a prostitute, threaten her, stalk her, torment her son, stalk another woman, possibly kill her, attempt to murder a man and abuse his position as a law enforcement officer. The only thing we're unsure of is the actual murder and it's looking more and more likely. He can go to prison for years for what we _know_ he's done, but I don't want him getting off for murder if he's guilty. No one should feel the way Mary felt. No one should feel the way Tim feels. No one should be in that situation, especially at the hands of an officer. It makes us all look bad."

"Somehow, I doubt that our reputation is what you're worried about."

"It's not."

"Yeah. I figured." Tony hesitated and then decided to ask. "So are you going to admit what really brought you out here or are we just going to keep pretending that we don't actually know already?"

Kate looked surprised for a moment and then raised an eyebrow.

"I know about that sniper and that you asked for a transfer after it was all over. We all know about that much, but since you obviously didn't want to talk about it, we didn't. This is getting to you for more than just the injustice of it, isn't it. How bad did it get?"

For a second, Tony thought Kate was going to explode on him, but then, she sighed and looked away from him, choosing to stare at her computer screen instead.

"He almost killed me," she said softly. "He was as close to me as I am to you, right now. You don't look someone in the eyes who wants you dead without being affected by it. When I saw how Sheriff Drake looked at Tim McGee, it was the same expression as I saw in Ari Haswari's eyes. He wanted to kill. It wasn't about _needing_ to. It was about _wanting_ to. I've never seen that in Tim's eyes, not even when he attacked Sheriff Drake. Disturbed or not, Tim is the innocent one, here. Sheriff Drake is a killer, and I don't want to see a killer escape justice. It's dangerous for everyone."

"Well, I agree that Sheriff Drake looks guilty as sin, but we need to make sure that we can prove it. The legal system doesn't care about the look in a person's eye. They care about proof."

"I know that."

"Good. Now, do you think something happened during the night and that's why Gibbs isn't here yet?"

If Kate was surprised by the sudden change in topic, she didn't show it.

"Yes. I'd be more surprised if nothing happened. Tim isn't stable, not yet. I think he's liable to go off at any second, given the right provocation. If Gibbs isn't here, it's because he's letting Tim sleep longer."

"It always makes me nervous when Gibbs isn't on time," Tony said. "It feels like I should watch for the world to be ending or something."

"Well, if you're not working, you'll definitely be asking for a head slap."

"Absolutely."

Kate started working again, but Tony got up from his desk and walked over. Kate looked up at his with a questioning expression. Tony knew that there wasn't really anything he could say to fix what had happened. It was over and done with. So he just squeezed her shoulder.

"You'll get him, Kate."

She smiled.

"You bet I will."

Then, it was back to work.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs woke up with a start, unsure of what had awakened him. Then, he looked at his watch and saw how late it was, relatively speaking. After six a.m. and he was just waking up? Well, there had been mitigating factors involved. While he liked to put off the appearance of never needing sleep, he did, and three a.m. surprises weren't conducive to deep sleep. He looked over and saw Tim still sleeping on the couch. He'd be surprised if Tim had slept well, but he was glad that he'd slept at all.

Instead of waking him, Gibbs settled back on the chair and waited. While he waited, he considered the man sleeping in front of him. That Tim was emotionally and psychologically messed up was obvious. The problems went extremely deep for him. Violent death had been part of his life for far too long. There was always a possibility that he couldn't overcome that. Twenty years of knowing that his mother had killed his father, knowing that and keeping it a secret, fearing his mother and yet not knowing what to do without her. An adult would have trouble with just that much, but that beginning had led to other things. It was actually rather impressive that Tim managed to keep it together as much as he had. Most of the time, even though his difficulties were obvious, he managed to interact on a fairly normal level.

It was just that he could break down so quickly and so shockingly. It was no wonder that everyone had been put off by him. It hadn't taken much to break Tim down. He'd never learned to deal with his emotions in a normal fashion because he hadn't been allowed to give voice to what drove them. At this point, it was easy to see why people didn't like him and equally easy to see why the continual rejection had warped him even more.

Suddenly, Tim started to move around in his sleep. He flung out his arms and hit the arm and side of the couch. Before Gibbs could move over to calm him, he sat up, looking around wildly for something. There was actually almost a whimper before he was able to get control of himself again.

"You all right?" Gibbs asked.

Tim jumped a little and looked at him. He looked away, seeming a little embarrassed.

"No, but that's okay."

"Sleep well?"

"I slept."

Which meant that he hadn't.

"What happens today?"

"We see if you can answer some more questions. We investigate."

"What do I do while you're investigating? I can't talk to Dr. Cranston all day."

Gibbs smiled at the assumption that it would be the suggestion he'd make.

"You can see Abby's lab if you want."

Tim looked at him apprehensively. "Abby's the one with all the tattoos and stuff, right?"

Gibbs nodded.

"I don't know. She makes me nervous."

No big surprise there. Tim hadn't responded well to women in general. Too much chaos tied up in them. Abby could be overwhelming to the most stable person, let alone someone like Tim.

"Just an option. Not required. You read?"

"Yeah. Some."

"I don't have much, but I'll ask the others to bring some books."

"Okay."

"We'll also need you to detail what happened during your confrontation with Sheriff Drake."

Tim tensed just with the mention of that.

"Why? You saw most of it, and I told you what happened."

"We need as many details as possible for when we charge him."

"What kind of details?"

"What he said, what you said, where it started, how long it took. All of it, if you can."

"Oh."

Tim didn't look too thrilled about that, but it _was_ necessary, and his account really was important. They needed all the details they could possibly get before Sheriff Drake tried to turn it all on Tim again. They might not be able to avoid that completely, but if Tim's account was beyond reproach, it would help them in the long run.

"When do I do all this?"

"When we get to the building."

"Okay."

"I'll get breakfast," Gibbs said. "You can shower."

"Okay."

Tim got up and Gibbs watched as he, almost reverently, pulled out new clothes to wear. He was glad that they'd survived the fire because it was clear that Tim was treasuring this experience. Every set of new clothes was an unexpected gift that he would never squander.

They certainly made him look better, too.

You could almost think he was just a normal guy.

As long as you didn't look him in the eye.

Gibbs promised himself that he would never make that mistake with Tim McGee. No matter how easy it was to ignore, he would always make sure to notice what was reflected in his eyes because so much could be seen there.

Tim didn't linger in the bathroom. They ate breakfast quickly and then, Tim looked at him, warily. Gibbs knew that every part of this journey was difficult for Tim. He didn't want to deal with it because most of his life had been spent _avoiding_ the things that caused him pain, whether it was people or events or memories. The idea of confronting them didn't even make sense.

"Time to go," Gibbs said. He didn't ask if Tim was ready. He knew he wasn't.

"Okay."

And it was off to the office again.


	37. Chapter 37

**Chapter 37**

As soon as they got into the office, Gibbs could see that Tony was bursting to tell him something. He could also see that Kate already knew about it.

"Kate, take Tim to the conference room and get him started on giving a detailed account of what happened in the confrontation with Sheriff Drake."

Kate raised an eyebrow, but she nodded and smiled at Tim.

"Okay, Tim. Let's get started. The sooner you start, the sooner you'll be done."

Tim nodded without any enthusiasm, but he followed Kate. As soon as they were out of sight, Gibbs looked at Tony.

"What?"

"Sleep in, Boss?" Tony asked.

Gibbs just raised an eyebrow. Tony grinned.

"Tobias Fornell called this morning. I called him, but he wasn't there. He called back, and he's coming out here."

"He is?"

"Well, I wouldn't tell him anything. I said he had to come here before he could find out. He doesn't know that Margaret McGee is dead. This seems important to him, but I don't know the reason why."

"He say when he was getting here?"

"No. I'm guessing he has to request time off, but I told him to call us when he gets here."

"Good."

"Tim had a bad night?"

"Yeah. Meltdown. I let him sleep in."

"How bad?"

"According to him, all life is about death and pain."

Tony grimaced. "Oh. That's bad."

"Yeah."

"So, what now?"

"We need to get as much as we can about Sheriff Drake. Stan is trying to build a map of where he was on the day of the murder. What he did to Tim is important, too, and maybe he said something incriminating."

"Like what? Wouldn't Tim have told us?"

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Right. Do you think he has a chance, Boss?" Tony asked. "I mean, I want him to get a real life, but can he do it? After everything he's gone through, can he really get beyond it?"

"Worse than you think it is, DiNozzo."

"What do you mean?"

"He told me, yesterday. He saw his mother kill his father."

Tony's eyes widened. "He... _saw_ it?"

"Yep."

"How?"

"Blunt force trauma. Said there was a lot of blood. Watched the whole thing. Saw her start the fire, too."

Tony swore softly and then was quiet for a few seconds.

"He told you about it?"

"Unwillingly. Hasn't said a word about it since then."

"And life is only about death and pain," Tony said, repeating Gibbs' words. "Man, that sucks."

"Yep."

"That's, like, ten times worse than I thought it was. Maybe more. Can he get through that?"

"I think so. With time."

"A lot of it."

"Yeah."

"Then, I'm really glad I made Agent Fornell come here before we let him know about Tim. I don't know how he managed to take so many hits without being completely insane, and he shouldn't have to take any more."

"Yeah."

Gibbs watched as Tony took the time to really process what Gibbs had told him. The idea of a seven-year-old boy watching his mother kill his father was horrifying, a kind of violence that no child should witness.

Tim had and it would take a lot of time and determination to make sure that he got out of that morass.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Okay, Tim. I know you're not thrilled about doing this, but it's important. If you can give as many details about Sheriff Drake's confrontation with you, it will help us figure out where to go next."

"But why?" Tim asked. "I don't see how this could help you find who killed Mary. I mean, he was saying that _I_ did...and I didn't!"

"We don't think you did, but anything could be important."

Tim sighed. "Fine. I got upset and I left Ducky's house. I just couldn't figure out how to tell Dr. Cranston about what was in my head and I got frustrated." Tim paused. "She's your sister, right?"

"Yes."

"And she's a shrink?"

"Yes," Kate said, with a smile.

"Why is she spending all this time on me? I can't pay her. I know you said that she works for this place, but...but when it has nothing to do with the case, I don't see that you guys would pay her for that. So...why do it?"

"Because you need it and she doesn't need the money."

Tim looked down.

"But it's got to be frustrating working with someone like me. I'm so twisted up in my head that I can't seem to get out of it."

"I can't speak to that," Kate said. "I do know that Rachel takes her job very seriously and she doesn't like to leave someone who needs the help. Unless the patient cuts it off with her, she'll try to keep on as long as she can."

Tim suddenly raised his head and looked her in the eye rather intently. Kate widened her eyes questioningly but waited to see what Tim would say. Then, he looked perplexed and sat back.

"He hasn't told you. You don't know."

"Who do you mean?" Kate asked. "What don't I know?"

"Agent Gibbs knows." The perplexed looked didn't fade, but he sat up a little straighter and nodded. "Where should I start?"

Kate wanted to probe more about what it was that Tim was surprised she didn't know. She also wanted to know why Gibbs hadn't told her. But she knew that there was a time for that, and that time wasn't now.

"Just start with when you left Ducky's house. Did you go straight to the shed?"

Tim nodded. "Yeah. I...I thought that maybe seeing it again would help me be able to talk about it. So I ran there. After I had gone inside before, I tried to stay away. I had asked Mary about it and she didn't want to talk, either. So I didn't ask anymore, but I didn't like how it made me feel, either. So I stayed away from it."

Like he did with everything that troubled him. Kate just nodded and smiled as she took her notes. There was a recorder, too, but better safe than sorry.

"I understand. Go on."

"When I got there, Sheriff Drake was there, too. He asked me why I was there. I didn't want to talk to him. I always hated talking to him. I hated him. No, I _hate_ him. It's not past tense."

Kate could see it in Tim's eyes. She agreed with him, but that wouldn't be the right way to go about things. The last thing Tim needed was to be egged on into more hatred.

"He found me by the shed and he started to accuse me of killing Mary. He kept saying that it was me and he said all these things about what I had done to her. But they weren't true!"

"I believe you, Tim," Kate said, but she found the idea perplexing. No one had been around during the initial confrontation. Why would Sheriff Drake feel the need to do that? She decided that she needed more detail. "What did he say?"

"I don't... I can picture it all in my head, the things he said to me, and I don't... I don't like to have that."

"I understand, Tim, but this could be important. Please."

Tim looked extremely reluctant, but he nodded. His eyes dropped and he wouldn't look at her.

"He said that I strangled her, that I put the scarf around...around her neck and I pulled it tight until she died. He said that I did it even when she was scratching at me to stop and that I...dumped her in the river so no one could find her. But I didn't! I didn't kill her! I didn't do it! It wasn't me!"

"It's okay, Tim," Kate said, trying to stop the meltdown before it got too far. "I'm just wanting to hear what Sheriff Drake said, not necessarily what happened. It's all right."

Tim took some quick, deep breaths, trying not to lose it. He closed his eyes. Kate hesitated and then put a hand on his shoulder.

"It's all right."

And suddenly, he seemed to calm down. He sat up and looked at her.

"Is it really?"

"Really what?"

"All right?"

"Maybe not yet, but it will be."

"I wish things would be all right. That's...I don't know if that's ever happened."

"It can."

Tim didn't respond, but he had calmed.

"Can you keep going?"

"He hit me in the face. It almost knocked me out. I fell down. I couldn't think straight. He put me in his car and took me to the river. Then, he said that he'd given me a chance. I could have left because no one did anything to my car when they burned my house."

Kate raised an eyebrow at that. While it didn't state outright that he'd been involved in the fire, it sure sounded like he'd at least urged it on.

"Then, he told me I had to take the consequences. I had to either confess to killing Mary or he was going to kill me. He meant it. I could tell. I was never in danger before, but I was scared of him. I was really scared because he meant it. He was going to kill me, but I couldn't say that I killed Mary. I couldn't say that."

Kate had long since decided that Sheriff Drake was likely guilty, but hearing Tim recount what he had said and done made her boiling mad. It took all she had not to show it.

"He said a lot of nasty things about me. Do you need to know those?"

"If you can tell me," Kate said, trying to keep her voice even.

"He said I was like a mongrel dog and the best thing that could happen to me was to be killed. He said that everyone hated me and that everyone could see that I was nothing. I am nothing and worth nothing. Death would be a kindness."

"He was wrong, Tim. That's not true."

"I've known people didn't like me. I know that Sheriff Drake hates me. I know that everyone wants me gone, but it hurt. I was surprised that it hurt to hear him say those things out loud. I knew it was how he felt. Why would it hurt to hear it?"

"Hearing the words can be surprising if you're not ready for it," Kate said.

Tim didn't seem to be listening to her.

"Then, he told me about Deputy Burley. He said that I'd be guilty of killing him, too, that he was going to burn. I couldn't let him burn, no matter what else. I was afraid of dying, but I couldn't let Deputy Burley burn, and Sheriff Drake didn't seem to care about it at all! He'd been working with him for years and he didn't care about killing him! What kind of person doesn't care?"

"I don't know."

Tim shook his head. "I jumped at him, trying to do whatever I could to stop him from burning Deputy Burley up. Then, you guys came and you know the rest."

Kate nodded. She wanted to kill Sheriff Drake herself for the kind of person he was being revealed to be. As they'd peeled back the layers of Tim's personality, they'd seen glimmers of the strong person he could be, the depths he contained. His disturbing nature was tempered by the potential for something better. Peeling back Sheriff Drake's layers had revealed someone ever more cruel and corrupt. Any good he had done in the past was marred, if not completely destroyed, by the things they _knew_ he'd done and the things he _might_ have done.

"Is that all, Agent Todd? Do I have to tell you anything more?"

Kate took a breath and calmed herself down.

"For now, Tim, that's all. I need to go over what you've told me."

Tim started chewing the inside of his cheek, nervously.

"Now, what?"

"Now...you have some free time. Is there somewhere you'd like to go?"

"I don't know anywhere to go. I've only been in this room and at Agent Gibbs' place."

Kate looked around. As far as rooms went, this one wasn't bad. It had a lot of windows and the chairs were pretty comfortable. Still, it had been built for practicality. It just didn't seem right for Tim to be stuck inside this place for hours on end. He wasn't the criminal. However, they all had work to do, and he couldn't and shouldn't just wander around, unchecked. But the only one who might have the time right now was Abby. Rachel wasn't here yet. Tim's reaction to Abby made Kate very wary about exposing him to her personality, especially given his issues with women in general.

Still, Abby wouldn't hurt him, and if he was willing to risk it, she might be a good person for him to talk to simply because she was the only one who would understand all the computer stuff.

He could always say no.

"Well, Abby offered to show you around her lab."

Instantly, Tim's expression closed off. Kate forced herself to smile and treat his wariness as shyness.

"She's a very nice person, Tim. She does get overly exuberant at times but she wouldn't hurt a fly."

Tim said nothing. Kate kept smiling, not wanting Tim to feel he was wrong for being afraid of her. It might be a needless fear, but his experiences made the reaction understandable.

"That's fine." She reached for her bag and pulled out a few books. "If you'd like to read for a bit, no one else will be coming in here until Rachel arrives."

"Okay."

"Is that all right with you?"

Tim nodded and hesitantly pulled the stack of books toward him. He had started investigating the titles when Kate left. As she headed back to the bullpen, she had a thought hit her. She hadn't noticed it consciously while Tim was recounting his experience with Sheriff Drake, but now, it was starting to ping. She stopped in her tracks in the middle of the hallway and started looking through her notes.

And then, there it was. So little fanfare and yet this could lead to more than they'd had before. She hurried off to tell Gibbs.

And to ask him what it was that Tim had told him already.


	38. Chapter 38

**Chapter 38**

"What's this all about, Stan?" Paul asked. "I thought you just wanted to know about Alan, and I told you that I'd answer any of your questions about that. Why the sheriff?"

"I can't tell you that, yet, Paul, but I promise that it's important," Stan said. "I'm not trying to trip you up or anything. I just want to know what you saw."

"Okay."

"So on the night Mary was killed, Sheriff Drake was on patrol. Did you ever see him drive by the store?"

"During the night?"

"Between five o'clock and nine o'clock."

"All right. Um...I'm not sure. You know how Sheriff Drake is. He likes to be seen around town. It's the usual thing."

"So was anything unusual, then?"

Paul didn't rush to answer the question. He thought about it. From what Stan understood, Paul hadn't done very well in school, not because he wasn't smart but because he hadn't taken it seriously, and he'd really matured since meeting Shelly. He'd turned his whole life around, and she hadn't been willing to marry him until he had shown that he could be a better man than he'd been. Paul had found someone who was helping him reach his potential and he probably didn't even realize that she was doing it. A year ago, he might have been part of the mindless hatred everyone had for Tim, but now, while he hadn't really changed _that_ part, he hadn't been willing to get involved and he wanted to keep his nose clean.

"I think I might have seen him around seven? Maybe seven thirty. I can't be sure, though. The store was still open, for sure, but it was getting dark. I think I saw him drive by around then. He didn't stop here, even though he usually did. That's the only thing that was a little unusual, but even that...he didn't always stop in."

"Right. I understand. Thanks, Paul. You still coming by the station?"

"Yeah. Shelly's going to come in around one and watch the store while I go. I don't want to get in trouble for this, Stan. I had nothing to do with it, and if I'd known that Alan was going to do what he did, I'd like think that I would have said something."

Stan appreciated the honesty, actually. Even now, Paul wasn't a hundred percent certain that he'd have directly gone against his former best friend, but he didn't want any trouble and he hadn't wanted to be involved. Stan smiled and stuck out his hand.

"You won't be in trouble for it, Paul. I promise. What we need is what you know. Since you didn't actually do anything, you'll be just fine."

Paul hesitated and then shook Stan's hand.

"Okay. See you later."

Stan left the store and headed on his way. So far as he could tell, while nothing had been really strange, Sheriff Drake hadn't been normal on that evening. He hadn't stopped to talk to anyone while he was on patrol, which he usually did, wanting to keep friendly with people in town. He hadn't answered any calls from dispatch. He had seemed wound up when he got back to the station.

No one had admitted to seeing him anywhere near the river so far, but a lot of people had admitted to _not_ seeing him anywhere else in town. The river was on the edge of Hazard. Few houses were to be found there, and the place where Mary and Tim had been known to hang out was isolated.

Now, it was time to see if there was anything to be found out closer to the river. There was one house near to the area where Tim and Mary had often been seen. Anyone coming _from_ the river back to town would go by it. They could go another way, but it was a longer route for people headed to the main part of Hazard, especially on foot. There was a dirt road that went toward the river and then joined up with the main road out of town, by the bridge where Mary's body had been found, and there was one house on that dirt road. Stan didn't much relish talking to the owner. Henry Swenson had been the principal at the high school and was an ornery man on the best of days. He was one of the only people in town with a No Trespassing sign on his lawn. To be fair, he hadn't been well-liked by the kids and so he'd been targeted for multiple TP-ing attacks. He tended to be abrupt and even rude, no matter how polite the question was.

But if anyone had been in the area, Henry would know because he was so often watching for intruders. They'd talked to him once before, but Stan had felt like he wasn't being truthful simply because he was feeling angry. Sheriff Drake had actually agreed, but, of course, he had assumed that Henry had seen Tim.

He walked up the porch and knocked lightly on the door. Henry hated doorbells and he tended to judge visitors by whether they knocked or rang the bell. Stan didn't get that, but he played along.

In seconds, he heard Henry's heavy tread and the door swung open, revealing Henry's suspicious face.

"Deputy Burley, why are you here? Don't you have anything better to do?"

Stan forced himself to smile. "If I did, I wouldn't be here, Mr. Swenson."

That was another thing about Henry. He was _not_ Henry to his face. He was always _Mr. Swenson_. Stan wasn't sure if that was a way to force some level of respect or if it was just that he'd been Mr. Swenson for over 30 years and couldn't let it go.

Henry grumbled a bit and stepped out onto his porch, rather than invite Stan inside. He gestured to one of the old porch chairs and sat down in one himself.

"I have a couple of questions to ask you, if you don't mind, Mr. Swenson."

"About what?"

"About the day Mary Fields was killed."

"Sheriff Drake already asked me about the McGee kid. I already told him what I knew. No one was around here that day besides Mary, at least no one that I saw."

"Did you really tell what you knew?" Stan asked, bluntly.

"You doubting my word, Deputy Burley?" Henry asked.

"Actually, I am. Come on, Mr. Swenson. You see everyone who goes to the river or comes from it. At least over in that direction. No one else is around and you're always peeking out your windows. For you to see _no one_ means something."

"And what's that?"

Stan chanced a joke. "We know that someone _had_ to be there. Sure, they could have come from the other way, but that's not as likely. So that means that either I'm talking to a ghost or you're lying, because the only way I can imagine you missing something is if you were dead."

Thankfully, it worked. Henry let out a reluctant chuckle.

"Okay, you're right. I lied."

"Why?"

And here was the moment that Stan was thrown for a loop, the moment when he saw a side of Henry Swenson he doubted _anyone_ had ever seen.

"Because I didn't want to give Sheriff Drake a reason to go after the McGee kid again. He did it often enough when he didn't have any reason. If I'd told him that I saw Tim going to the river that day, he'd have been convicted. Everyone in town would have been after him. You saw what they did without that."

"You saw Tim McGee going to the river?"

"Yeah. He came by here all the time, you know. Probably came from the other side, too, but when he was in school, especially, he'd come this way. The day Mary was killed, I watched him walk to the river about four in the afternoon and about two minutes later come running back as if the devil was after him. Don't know why, but he's such a strange kid that he probably didn't need a reason."

"You see Mary go there?"

"No. And that's the truth. But I'd taken a nap after lunch. She could have come by then."

"A nap?" Stan asked.

Henry actually smiled. "It's been a few years. Kids aren't so determined anymore. I can let my guard down, sometimes. Just don't tell anyone."

"Your secret's safe with me."

"Good."

"So you didn't want Tim McGee to get in trouble?"

"I did wrong by him when I was working. I can admit that, now. We could have done something for him, but we never did. Too much trouble. Too much work. No support from anyone to do it. So many other things to worry about. So we just ignored him. It was too easy to do because he made it easy. Didn't expect anything from anyone. Too late to fix it while it was happening. I guess this was my way of trying to do something for him. I knew why the sheriff was asking, and he didn't have time to do anything to Mary. It really was two minutes, tops. Even if he went down there and killed her right away, he would still have had to move her so that she'd be hidden by the river. It couldn't have been him."

"I believe you."

"But it could have been the sheriff himself if it's just time that you're needing."

"What?" Stan asked, in surprise.

"Oh, yeah. He went to the river, too. Around eight, I think. It was getting dark. I never saw him come back, but you know he could have gone on around and made a loop. He didn't usually patrol over here, even when I told him about the brats coming after me. You're the only one I could get to take me seriously."

Stan suppressed a smile. He hadn't taken Henry seriously, either, but he had been willing to humor him... _and_ have a talk with some of the kids to let them know that he'd be watching for trouble.

"You're sure of the time?"

"Not completely. It could have been ten to eight or ten after eight, but I know it was somewhere around eight o'clock. It was getting dark."

"Why didn't you ever say anything before?"

"To who? The sheriff?" Henry asked, smiling cynically. "Besides, why would I think that Sheriff Drake was the guilty one? He's the sheriff. I can tell that's where you're leaning, now, though. I won't ask why. I know enough to know that you're not going to tell me, but I can see where you're heading, and I can tell you that Sheriff Drake was on this side of town around eight on the night Mary was killed. I have a hard time believing that he did it, but there you go."

Stan wished he could think the same way. He could easily believe that Sheriff Drake was the guilty one. He'd been stalking Mary. He'd scared her. He'd been acting strangely. And now, he was at the crime scene during the time frame in which she'd been killed. It was still circumstantial. As Henry had said, it would have been easy enough for Sheriff Drake to simply drive by and continue on his way.

It was just that it would be equally easy for him to have stopped, killed Mary and _then_ driven on his way.

"Thanks, Mr. Swenson. I appreciate it."

"No problem. You helped keep the kids off my lawn. I can reciprocate on occasion."

Stan made a note to keep track of what happened over here more often. Having Henry Swenson on his side might make more of a difference than he'd thought.

"Oh, and one more thing. I heard about Ducky's house being damaged by that punk. If he needs a place to stay, I have a spare room. I'm not asking him to move in, you understand, but a few days would be okay."

Stan smiled. "I'll pass the word along."

Then, he left the house, feeling both terrible that it was looking like Sheriff Drake was a murderer and glad that Gibbs hadn't just been blowing smoke.

When he got back to the station, he sat at his desk and looked at his notes. Strictly from the point of view of timing, Sheriff Drake could easily be the killer. The thought gave him no pleasure because it meant that the man he'd thought he'd known very well had been someone else entirely. If this was where the evidence led, it was what he would have to deal with it.

And so would the rest of Hazard.


	39. Chapter 39

**Chapter 39**

Tim looked at the books. He hadn't ever had many of them, but he'd always thought it would be nice to be able to walk to a bookshelf and get a book and read it when he wanted. He'd liked the library in the high school, but once he'd graduated, that source of books had been lost. Technically, the high school library was also a community library, but he'd never felt welcome there.

He picked up the book on top of the stack and started to read it. Then, he found himself interested in the story. Instead of fretting more about being in this room in this place he didn't know or understand, Tim found himself sitting down and just reading. It distracted him from the chaos. It was nice.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Kate walked into the bullpen, intent on sharing her thoughts on what Tim had told her and her idea of what that could mean.

Gibbs and Tony were both working, but she could see that Tony seemed rather upset.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

"Tony looks like he's at a funeral," Kate raised an eyebrow in return. "I was only gone for a few minutes. What happened?"

"Not funny, Kate," Tony said.

"Does this have anything to do with whatever it is that you know that you didn't tell me?" she asked. "Tim seemed to think it was obvious that I didn't know, but that you did know. What is it?"

"Tim told Gibbs about the night his dad died," Tony said.

"Oh. What did he tell you?" Kate asked, losing any trace of levity.

"He watched his mom kill his dad and his dad's girlfriend."

"Gibbs said it was blunt force trauma," Tony added.

That actually explained quite a bit about Tim's reactions. Kate's mind quickly correlated that to Tim's reactions to herself, to Abby, to women in general, and his inability to overcome his past made perfect sense. How did one get over that when it was kept as a secret for so long with no one to confide in?

"I can see why he could tell I didn't know," Kate said after a moment. "You can't look him the same way, can you."

"No," Tony said. "I know I can't."

"That's awful."

"What did you get from him?" Gibbs asked.

Kate pulled her mind back onto the main reason she'd come in there in the first place.

"Tim told me something that I think we need to look into."

"What?" Tony asked.

"He said that when Sheriff Drake confronted him at the shed, he started accusing him of killing Mary. One of the things Tim said that Sheriff Drake accused him of was..." She got out her notes. "...strangling Mary even while she was _scratching_ at him. There's no reason to put that kind of detail into his accusation, especially when Tim was the only person around. No one was there to hear him. No one was there to be convinced. It was just Tim and Sheriff Drake. The fact that he did indicates that, in the heat of the moment, he was giving details he knew about."

"You're saying that Mary actually did scratch at him?" Tony asked. "Wouldn't that be kind of obvious?"

"Only if she got his face. There are other places to scratch, and I've never seen Sheriff Drake without a shirt. Have you?"

"No. Thank you very much."

Kate looked at Gibbs. "I think there may be something to this, Gibbs. We couldn't get DNA from it, but human fingernails are dirty places. If she did scratch him, then, I wouldn't be surprised if the scratches got infected, even if they were small. And if that's the case, they wouldn't be healed up yet. They'd still be there. If I'm right, that's actual physical evidence."

"Of scratches. Not of who did it," Gibbs pointed out.

"But unless he's into that kind of thing, a scratch isn't something that just happens by accident. It's obvious when it's coming from a human being. Who did it if it wasn't Mary?" Kate asked.

"We'll have to get a warrant for that."

"Then, let's do it," Kate said. "I can't believe that Sheriff Drake would have randomly said that. There must be a reason for it. We have a specific description from an eyewitness. That's enough for a warrant. We're not asking for a cavity search, just an examination of his torso and arms. All he has to do is take off his shirt."

"How sure are you of this?" Gibbs asked.

"Yeah, Kate," Tony said. "I get that you want to make sure we take him down. I do, too, but...you're basing it off the idea that he wouldn't make something up when he was falsely accusing Tim of killing Mary. If he was already lying..."

Kate sighed in exasperation. "Look. I know you guys think I'm just being vindictive about him, but this is not just about my hating him, and I admit it. I do. I think he's the worst example of what law enforcement is supposed to be. But it's not about that. Sheriff Drake is known to have stalked two different women. We know that he was paying for sex and was angry when that was taken away from him. We know that he was willing to kill Stan to destroy the evidence in the shed and put the blame on Tim. The only thing we don't know for sure is that he killed Mary. Sheriff Drake has shown himself to be willing to kill and to do a lot of things just for his own pleasure or to protect himself. We've also seen how confident he is that he'll get away with it. He almost shot Tim and had an explanation ready. Why did he say that to Tim? I don't know. I don't know why he even felt the need to talk to Tim as if he knew Tim was guilty when there were no witnesses, unless he thought he could force Tim to say what he said. If we get the warrant and I'm wrong, fine. We'll have to think of something else, maybe even some _one_ else, but right now, Sheriff Drake looks guilty, and we have something we can try to get more evidence."

Gibbs was quiet for a moment. Kate had made her argument and while she wanted to push, she forced herself to wait. She'd been heard, and she hadn't compromised her passion or the evidence.

"Write up the request," Gibbs said.

Kate nodded and got right on it before he could change his mind.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim set the book down. Just sitting and reading was such a foreign thing for him that it felt like he was doing something wrong.

He stood up and paced around the room for a few minutes. What would he do? He felt so edgy like he should be doing something, saying something, but there was nothing to say or do.

He looked at the door and was afraid to open it. He didn't know what to expect on the other side of it. He was afraid of the unknown. What he knew was bad enough. How much worse could what he didn't know be?

Still, it was either sit in here until he went stir crazy or risk something negative on the other side of the door.

He reached out for the knob and then hesitated.

Then, he reached out again and opened the door.

An empty hallway was all that he saw. He remembered being told that he wasn't supposed to wander through the building without an escort, and he did acknowledge that, but at the same time, no one was here. He didn't have a phone, nor did he know the number of anyone to call. And he couldn't stay in that room any longer. He had to get out.

He took a moment to orient himself and then began to walk toward the bullpen.

He hoped.

He got about ten steps down the hallway.

"Excuse me. Are you lost?"

For just a moment, Tim wanted to start running. This was a stranger. He didn't know the voice. Although it didn't sound threatening, it _did_ sound authoritative, and most people in authority hadn't liked him.

He forced himself to turn around and tried not to shrink away from the older man approaching him.

"Are you lost?" the man asked again.

"I-I was...looking for...uh...I..." All he could do was stammer in the face of this man he didn't know.

The man furrowed his brow for just a moment and then smiled.

"Agent Gibbs?"

"Yes," Tim said, although it didn't really matter who as long as it was someone he knew, even slightly.

"Come on, I'll take you to his desk. I'm looking for him, too."

Tim followed meekly behind the man, although he could have walked beside him. That seemed presumptuous under the circumstances. He was slightly gratified to see that he'd picked the right direction.

When they got to the bullpen, Gibbs was there, along with Kate and Tony. Tim was relieved to see people he knew and people he knew didn't despise him on principle.

"Director," Tony said in surprise. "Tim! What's up?"

"Uh..." Now, that it came right down to it, Tim was finding he couldn't even think of how to hold a real conversation in the presence of a complete stranger...one who had been called a director. That was not a regular every-day person. He was _important_. That only made Tim more nervous.

Thankfully, the man saved him, although he probably didn't know it.

"Agent Gibbs, I need an update on your investigation if you have a moment."

Gibbs nodded and stood up. He looked at Tony and Kate for a few seconds but said nothing. Whatever message he'd passed on, it hadn't needed words. Then, he left with the man and Tim looked back at Tony and Kate.

"Who was that?" Tim asked.

"Director Morrow. He's the head of the SBI."

"The head?"

"Yeah, did he find you in the conference room?" Kate asked.

Tim shook his head. "I came out...myself. I was... You said that maybe I'd like seeing the lab?"

Instantly, Tony was all smiles. He jumped to his feet.

"Oh, great! I'll take you there, myself."

"What's she like?"

"Abby?" Tony asked.

Tim nodded.

"Don't worry. If you don't have any tattoos, you're not her type," Tony said with an encouraging grin.

"So if I had a tattoo, I'd be her type? That's all it takes?"

"I'm sure there's something more, but I'm sure that much is required. She's never dated me."

Tim wasn't sure where it came from, but it slipped out.

"Are you sure it's just the lack of tattoos?"

For just a moment, he would swear that Tony looked shocked, but then, he laughed and slapped Tim on the back.

"Good one! Let's go."

Tim nodded and followed Tony. He was really unsure about whether or not he wanted to spend any time with this Abby person, but he was cautiously willing to take a risk. He wasn't above running away if need be. He'd be embarrassed, but he'd be away.

"Hey, Abbs! Tim wants a tour!"

Abby was just getting off the phone. She turned toward them and smiled.

"Hey! I knew you wouldn't be able to resist. I've got all the fun toys. Come on in!"

Tim hesitated for a moment and Abby's smile changed from gleeful to encouraging.

"It's okay, Tim. I don't bite."

Tim took a breath and walked into the lab.

"Okay. You're a computer guy, right?"

"Kind of," Tim said. "I mostly taught myself. I don't have any real...formal training."

"Ah, you're a natural, then! Neat! I'll show you what I've got and then, I'll show you how to use the stuff you don't recognize."

"Okay."

"Looks like you're all set," Tony said.

Tim nodded, although he wasn't entirely sure of that, himself. Still, Abby was being welcoming and Tim didn't feel like he could now say no.

After Tony left, Tim felt completely tongue-tied. He had no idea what to say to this person who looked like she belonged on the back of a Harley but with pigtails and a grin like a little kid. All in all, Tim had never seen anything like her.

Abby's smile widened.

"Done looking?" she asked.

Tim instantly looked down at the floor, embarrassed to have been caught staring at her like she was an alien.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"Nothing to apologize for. But the computers are a lot more interesting than I am. Well...almost more interesting."

Tim chanced looking up at her and Abby gestured for him to join her at the fanciest computer he'd ever seen.

"It's an old model, but it gets the job done."

"It's the nicest one I've ever seen."

"Yeah, I guess that'd be true, but they make some really souped up models now. We just don't have the budget to keep up."

"I never did, either."

Abby pulled a stool over by her and patted it.

"Have a seat. I'll let you take a test drive."

Tim hesitated, looked back at the door and then back at Abby. Her smile didn't fade even though he was probably being rude by not responding so easily as she was. She just patted the stool again.

He took a breath and walked over to join her.


	40. Chapter 40

**Chapter 40**

Morrow gestured for Gibbs to have a seat in his office.

"What's happening, Gibbs?" he asked. "The last I heard, you'd arrested Sheriff Alan Drake for assault and attempted murder. Now, you have Tim McGee here and I find that you've put in a request for a body search of Sheriff Drake. Care to explain why you're doing that?"

"We think that Sheriff Drake murdered Mary Fields."

Morrow sat back and looked at him skeptically.

"Based on what evidence? Hopefully, not that young man who appeared to be terrified just at the sight of me. He's not a reliable witness. I can tell that, just by looking at him."

"He doesn't trust what he doesn't know." Gibbs sighed and decided just to get this part over with. It was important that Morrow knew, from the outset, how difficult Tim's life had been. Besides, it never hurt to cultivate some sympathy. "Director, Tim McGee witnessed a double murder when he was seven years old."

"What murder? That's not in his records."

"That's because he never told anyone until yesterday. He watched his mother kill his father and his father's girlfriend. Then, he watched her start the fire that burned up the evidence. He saw his mother earning money through prostitution as well. That's all before he moved to Hazard. Before he was even eight years old. In Hazard, we know that Sheriff Drake was paying Margaret McGee for sex until she decided to end that business. Tim McGee lived afraid of his mother but having only her to lean on."

Morrow was silent, but he gestured for Gibbs to continue.

"We have evidence that Sheriff Drake was stalking Mary Fields. We know that Mary Fields was afraid of him, that she thought he might physically hurt her. We know that he had been stalking Margaret McGee before her death. In a few hours, we'll know basically where he was the night of the murder."

"And the warrant for a body search?"

While Gibbs understood Kate's explanation and even agreed with it, he knew it wouldn't sound good to Morrow if he didn't phrase it right. Gibbs knew himself to be no politician, but at the same time, this was something that was important. Otherwise, they had no physical evidence to tie Sheriff Drake to Mary's death.

"When Sheriff Drake assaulted Tim McGee, he gave details of what happened during the murder that might indicate he was there."

"Such as?"

"Scratches. We're requesting a search only of his torso and arms. Visual examination only, unless we find what we're looking for."

"How likely do you think this is?"

"Given what we've seen of Sheriff Drake's behavior, I find it likely."

"Why?"

"He's violent, obsessive, and has shown more than once that he thinks he can get away with anything as long as he has an explanation ready. He nearly shot Tim McGee twice without justifiable cause but tried to claim there was. In one situation, he had physically subdued Tim McGee after a fight. He was nearly unconscious and yet Sheriff Drake was ready to shoot him. In the other situation, Tim McGee had done nothing more than stand up. Both times, if we hadn't been there, Tim McGee would likely be dead."

Morrow considered all the information. Then, he gave Gibbs that piercing look he didn't like. Morrow was one of the few people who knew when Gibbs was intentionally not telling everything.

"So since Tim McGee is here and not in Hazard, where is he staying? A hotel?"

"My place."

"Your place? That's not quite kosher, Gibbs. I realize that Lincoln isn't a booming metropolis, but there are plenty of decent hotels."

"He can't stay in a hotel."

"Why not?"

"He can't afford it."

Morrow smiled knowingly. "That's not why. The SBI could foot the bill if his presence here was deemed necessary, and you know that I wouldn't fight you on that. Please don't insult my intelligence."

"He needs to be somewhere with people he knows, even a little bit. He's emotionally unstable and isn't ready to be alone here, yet."

"I realize that you've cleared him of a number of possible charges, but until you make formal charges against Sheriff Drake, this could be considered conflict of interest."

"Only if you tell the wrong people," Gibbs said.

Morrow sighed.

"How long is it going to take you to make all this official?"

"Maybe a day or two, depending on how long it takes to get the warrant," Gibbs said, significantly. "Might be tomorrow if you helped get it through."

Morrow sighed again.

"You'd better know what you're doing, Gibbs, because if this doesn't pan out, you could be in more trouble than I can get you out of."

"We're not doing anything illegal."

"Not technically."

Gibbs smiled. "That's all that matters."

"How bad off is this Tim McGee?"

Gibbs raised an eyebrow, silently asking why.

Morrow responded with his own raised eyebrow. "You tend to ignore the law when it suits you if you think you can get away with it. Another director would probably look the other way more than I'm willing to, but I also know that you care about doing things right. So what's right in this case?"

"Tim McGee has nothing. Dr. Mallard asked us to get him clothes after his house was burned and he's acted like every outfit is an amazing gift. He's grown up knowing that everyone hated him and the few who didn't hate him didn't care anything about him. The one person who didn't do that was Mary Fields. She's now dead. Dr. Mallard has been trying to help, but there's only so much he can do. Dr. Cranston is currently working with him, but he has no one and nothing...except us, now."

"He's got to you, hasn't he."

"Yeah," Gibbs said, honestly.

"No other options for him? No family?"

"Possibly."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that the husband of the stepdaughter of Tim McGee's grandmother has been looking for him. He's coming here to talk to us."

"That's a little distant, isn't it?"

"Best we've got besides the uncle who believes that Tim killed his brother."

"Okay. I'll allow this, but you need to get the case against Sheriff Drake as strong as possible. I don't want a conflict of interest to ruin something that should be obvious. Understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Then, get back to work." He smiled a little.

Gibbs nodded and left the office. He headed back to the bullpen. Tim wasn't there, and both Tony and Kate were.

"Where's Tim?" he asked.

Tony smiled. "He's with Abby in the lab. I was going to give them another five minutes before I went and checked to make sure Tim wasn't being overwhelmed."

"What did Morrow want?" Kate asked.

"An update." Gibbs paused. Sure, why not give her what he knew she was hoping for. "You'll get your warrant."

"He agreed?"

"He's allowing it."

"When?"

"By tomorrow."

Kate nodded and tried not to look too gleeful. While it really wasn't completely about her loathing of Sheriff Drake, that certainly was helping her become more excited about it.

Tony got up.

"I was thinking I'd take him to get some lunch, Boss. That okay?"

Gibbs nodded. The more normal things Tim was able to do, the better. Rachel would probably be by in the afternoon and those times were difficult, Gibbs knew. As difficult as they were necessary. Give Tim something normal as a buffer between the strange and the difficult.

"You want to come, too, Kate?" Tony asked.

Gibbs watched as Kate thought about it and he could tell what was going through her mind. Interest in making sure they were completely ready to examine Sheriff Drake warring with a desire to help Tim have a more normal life. Then, she smiled.

"You can make it a guys' afternoon out."

"Don't have too much fun without us," Tony said and headed out of the bullpen.

Kate sighed a little when Tony was gone.

"Gibbs?"

Gibbs looked at her.

"What are you going to do about Tim's father?"

He raised an eyebrow in a silent question.

"Tim has solved a case without knowing it. If we make that knowledge official, he'll have to give a statement and let people investigate, verify what he said, give more details than he probably gave you...and I don't know if he can handle that. You said that he's only let it out once and hasn't said a word about it since then. I don't think he could tolerate being interrogated about something that probably is the dominant reason for his instability. Not right now."

It was true, Gibbs knew. Tim couldn't handle being asked for details about what he had seen as a child. He'd fall apart. But quite honestly, given the fact that both of Tim's parents were dead, the truth would help very few people. However, Lauren Andreason, Tim's father's girlfriend, might have family who would want to know the truth. They'd have to balance that possibility with Tim's ability to deal with it. For now, it would stay unofficial because Tim wouldn't be able to talk about it in any kind of coherent way and he was the only person who could talk about it...and really how much evidence was that, anyway? The testimony of an unstable man about something that had happened 20 years ago?

"For now, we do nothing," Gibbs said. "One case at a time."

"Okay."

Kate looked at him for a long moment and then turned back to her own work. Gibbs figured there was plenty to do, so he said nothing more.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tony headed for the lab, wondering what he'd find in there. If Abby had taken both his and Kate's warnings seriously, she might be great for Tim to spend time with, but given Tim's tendency to having meltdowns, it was equally possible that she had overwhelmed him. However, if that had actually happened, he was sure that Abby would have told them.

When he got there, he stopped in the doorway and watched.

Tim and Abby were sitting close together in front of a computer. They were looking at what appeared to be blueprints. Abby was talking animatedly about things incomprehensible to Tony, but Tim was engrossed. It was a moment when Tony could see what Tim might have been like. He seemed so interested in what Abby was telling him that the rest of the world might as well not have existed. He was soaking it up like a sponge.

It was almost criminal that he'd never had the chance to do something like this before.

Tony didn't know how Abby had managed to get him to think about whatever this was instead of what always seemed to bother him, but he was happy to see Tim not overtly upset. He waited a few more minutes and then, Abby noticed him.

"Hey, Tony!"

Tim jumped and looked back, his eyes getting that wary tint for a few seconds before his expression cleared.

"Hey," Tony said. "Looks like you were having fun."

"I was showing Tim how some of the programs work, but he picked it up really fast. So I've been trying to see if I can stump him," Abby said with a glance at Tim. "I haven't yet."

Tony regretted interrupting the interaction because, with the end of the computer conversation, Tim stepped away from Abby, as if he'd suddenly realized that he wasn't comfortable with her. For her part, Abby didn't act offended, something Tony was grateful for. You never knew with Abby.

"It's about time for lunch. You hungry?" Tony asked.

"Uh...yeah. Sure," Tim said.

"Don't worry. Nothing fancy."

"Okay."

Tim started to follow Tony out, but then, he stopped and looked back to Abby.

"Thanks," he said.

Abby grinned. "Anytime, Tim."

"Really?"

"Really."

Tim looked like he wasn't sure he could believe her, but there was a tentative hope in his eyes that maybe he might be able to.

"Thanks."

Then, Tim walked with Tony out of the lab. They headed out of the building and when they were in the open air, Tim suddenly took a deep breath and it struck Tony that Tim wasn't used to being confined to any particular place. As bad as his life had been, he had been free to go anywhere he wanted whenever he wanted. To be inside this building all day was probably hard.

He adjusted his plans slightly.

"There's a little café just down the street here. We can walk," he said.

"Okay," Tim said, not showing any preference, but Tony was learning not to expect that.

As they walked down the sidewalk, Tim seemed genuinely awed. It was almost laughable. At a little over 250,000, Lincoln was far from huge. Sure, it was bigger than Hazard, but surely, Tim was familiar with how big cities could be.

Then, Tony thought about the conditions in which Tim had grown up. There had been a TV in his house and he'd had a computer, but his life was one with a very narrow focus. How could he think about the rest of the world when his own inner world was such a mess? Tony knew himself to be overly superficial at times. It made life easier, but he felt a surprisingly deep pang at Tim's life. It was as if he could see Tim as a colleague he'd never had simply because of fate.

"So...where are we going?" Tim asked, bringing Tony out of his musings.

"Just across the street here."

Tim just nodded. Tony wondered if he should state the obvious, i.e. that he would be paying. Then, he figured that there was no reason to point it out. Tim knew he had nothing.

They crossed the street to the café and Tony watched as Tim stared at the posted menu. Another thought struck him. Had Tim ever eaten in a restaurant, even a casual one like this?

"You know what you want?" Tony asked.

"I don't know what half this stuff even is," Tim said, his voice low. "What do I do?"

Tony smiled. "Well, they have a lunch deal. You can get a sandwich, a drink and chips for not too much. Do you like roast beef?"

"I think so. I had it once."

"Then, you should try the roast beef sandwich. It's great. And best of all, since Kate isn't with us, we don't have to worry about her trying to force health food on us."

"Health food? Like what?"

"Oh, whatever the current trend is. Kate insists that I'll like it, but it's always disgusting. Quinoa, gluten-free, soy, whatever."

"What's quinoa?" Tim asked.

Tony grinned. "It's disgusting health food. You want the roast beef?"

"Um...sure."

"Good. I'll get that, too," Tony said. And stepped up to the counter. He ordered two lunch specials, grabbed some plain chips and two cups for drinks. He handed one to Tim and watched as Tim walked over and stared at the drink choices for a long time.

Then, almost tentatively, it seemed, Tim stepped up to the array and put his glass under the root beer dispenser. When the pop came out, he let go of the button in surprise and then, looked embarrassed at his own reaction and finished filling his cup.

It was interesting to see Tim come into contact with things that were just normal and yet he really hadn't dealt with them, not because of where he had lived but because of how.

Before Tim could notice he was being stared at, Tony walked over and filled his own cup. Then, they waited for their sandwiches, Tony paid and led them out of the café. Initially, he had thought of having them just eat there, but then, seeing how much Tim seemed to like being outside, he led them to a park nearby.

They sat at a table and began eating. It was awkward silence, at first. Tony couldn't think of anything to say and Tim didn't seem interested in talking.

Then, Tim took a breath and looked around.

"Do you do this a lot?"

"Not a lot. We have work to do through lunch a lot of the time, but I do it when I can."

"Why today?"

Tony smiled. "Because I thought you could use some time out of the building and doing something normal...or what _should_ be normal. Besides, I'm hungry, too."

"This is normal, then...for normal people?"

"Yeah. Lunch break."

Tim nodded briefly. Then, he looked around the park.

"It does seem...simple."

"What does?"

"This place. When I look at it...there's no association or anything. I've never been here before. It doesn't mean anything to me. I'm not used to that. I'm used to looking around and seeing memory after memory. All bad."

"Well, this isn't a bad place to start making good memories. I've got plenty, even though I'm not from here."

"Where are you from, then?"

"New York City, actually. Never thought I'd end up in the middle of the flyover states."

"How did you end up here?" Tim asked.

"I don't know, exactly. I was a cop, but I still had this feeling of needing to keep moving around. I couldn't settle in any one place. I was in Illinois. I was in Maryland. Then, a job popped up here in Nebraska. I decided to take it. After a couple of years on state patrol, Gibbs pulled me over to the investigation side of things. I've been here ever since. Lincoln's no New York, but it's big enough to have things to do and places to go. Like you say, it's pretty simple here, and I like that, even if I never thought I would."

Tony glanced over at Tim and found that Tim was staring at him as avidly as he'd been staring at the computer. It was like he was an entirely new experience.

"But you chose it?"

"Yeah."

Tim looked down at his sandwich, and Tony could see that Tim had suddenly felt some kind of pang. He supposed it was because of the knowledge that he'd never really been able to choose. He wasn't sure what he could do to help with that because there was only so much they could realistically do at this point. Later on, it would be easier, but not in the middle of (or hopefully end of) an investigation.

But he really wanted to get rid of that distressed expression on Tim's face. He shouldn't be looking like that, even though Tony knew why he was.

"Anything you want to do before we head back?"

"I can't think of anything," Tim said.

That was probably true. Tim may not even know what his options might be.

"Okay. Let's finish eating and I have to get back to work. Dr. Cranston will probably be there."

"Yeah," Tim said, with reluctance.

"Not looking forward to that?"

"No. It's not fun at all...but I guess it's a good thing."

"I'll bet it is. Rachel knows what she's doing."

"I wish there was something good I could see coming out of all this."

"You'll get there," Tony said.

Then, Tim looked at him quizzically. Tony smiled and took another bite of his sandwich.

"What?"

"You don't seem like you're usually the guy who's always like this."

"Like what?"

"I don't know...nice?"

Tony laughed. "Well, you don't kick a guy when he's down. When you're on your feet, watch out. Until then, you don't have to worry about me being...not nice."

Tim almost smiled. "Okay."

They finished eating and started back to the office. Tony regretted not being able to do something more than lunch, but he supposed it was better than nothing.

Rachel was just walking into the building as they approached. She waited for them to catch up, smiling pleasantly.

"Tim, Tony, what brings you out here?"

"Lunch," Tony said.

"Are you here to talk to me, again?" Tim asked.

"Yes, if you're all right with that."

"I guess so." Tim swallowed nervously.

Tony could see that Tim wasn't looking forward to it, but given the things that he had to talk about, there wasn't likely to be much fun to be had.

"Then, if you're ready, we can get started."

"Yeah. Okay."

Tim looked back at Tony.

"Thanks...for lunch."

"Anytime, Tim," Tony said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. Really. Well, anytime that I don't have to work through lunch. Maybe when you're more sure of this place, I'll just send you to fetch me lunch. It'd be nice to have someone at my beck and call."

Tim smiled a little.

"I might be willing to do that."

Tony grinned and went inside. He watched as Tim got more tense, walking with Rachel. No matter what the topic ended up being, Tim wouldn't be able to relax. He just hoped that it really would help. He split off from them and headed back to his desk. Kate was still focusing intently on her computer screen.

"Blink, Kate. The info won't disappear," he said.

Kate looked up and smiled.

"Just working. How was lunch?"

"Interesting."

"Good or bad?"

"Just...interesting," Tony said. "Tim didn't know how to deal with all the menu choices. I had to basically tell him what to get."

Kate's brow furrowed skeptically.

"It's not that he didn't know how to order. He told me that he didn't even know what all the options were, and I don't think he's had many chances to choose whatever he wanted. He was even startled by using the pop machine."

"Really?"

"He was embarrassed by that, but yeah. This really is like a new world for him."

"If that's true, then, I'm more glad than ever that we brought him here, no matter how hard it is for him. It's not that he needs to know how to use a soda fountain, but..."

"...but it seems wrong," Tony finished.

"Exactly." Kate sighed. "Where is he, now?"

"With your sister. Wasn't very excited about that."

"I don't blame him. As much as I love Rachel, his sessions are probably really hard. I don't think there's any way to avoid that, though. Even when I was talking to him this morning, he got wound up, trying to defend himself."

"Yeah, and I think he's starting to trust us, but still, how do you get rid of a lifetime of experiences in a couple of days?"

"You don't," Kate said, "but he can make a start, and hopefully, he can really get rid of it."

Tony nodded.

"I guess I should get back to work."

"Yes, you should. If we really get this warrant tomorrow, we'll have a really good chance of getting some solid evidence."

"Kate...what if you're wrong about what Sheriff Drake said?"

"I don't think I am," Kate said. "I think, in the heat of the moment, he used details he already knew to try and foist his guilt onto Tim in the hopes of getting an excuse to get him out of the way."

"But what if you're wrong?"

"Tony, if I'm wrong, I'll admit it. I don't like not getting him for murder, but at least, we'll be able to get him for attempted murder and stalking." She paused and then skewered him with a look. "I'm not going to do the same thing that Sheriff Drake has done to Tim. Don't put me in that same category."

"That's not what I meant," Tony said. "I just don't want you to be...disappointed."

"Oh, I'll be disappointed," Kate said, "but I _won't_ go after him on my own."

"Okay, then...I'll let you go back to work."

"Good." She turned back to her computer, but she looked back up. "Thanks for worrying, Tony."

Tony smiled. "Anytime."


	41. Chapter 41

**A/N:** Just one quick word about this chapter. It goes into some detail about what Tim witnessed as a child, but it's from a child's point of view. If that is the kind of thing that troubles you, you may want to skip it. It's really only details, not anything completely and utterly new. I just felt that it was important to give them but at the same time, I recognize that some people may not want to know.

* * *

 **Chapter 41**

 _Tim lay awake for a long time, staring at the dark ceiling. He couldn't forget the things he'd seen. He couldn't forget how bad things were. He didn't know how to deal with it all. His teacher had started looking at him strangely. That hurt. He loved school. It was the only place where things made sense, but now, even that was getting ruined._

If only Daddy were home, _he thought plaintively._

 _He reached under his pillow and pulled out the scarf Daddy had given him just before he left. But that wasn't Daddy. He wanted Daddy to come back, to make things the way they were before all those men were in the house...in Mommy's bedroom with her._

 _It was quiet for once. No one was there, including Mommy. He didn't know where she'd gone, but he didn't care. He wanted his family back._

 _He got out of bed and pulled on his clothes, wrapping the scarf around his neck last of all. He'd find Daddy and beg him to come home, to get rid of all those men who weren't Daddy, to fix things. Then, Mommy wouldn't hate him anymore, and Tim could love him again, too._

 _Quietly, he crept out of the house and started to make his way across town._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Rachel met Tim's gaze. There was fear in his eyes. He knew that she was going to ask him painful questions, and he had too much he'd grown up trying to avoid. She was asking him to change a lifetime of behavior and to do so very quickly.

"Tim, have a seat."

He sat but said nothing.

"You know what I want to ask you about?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"I know," Rachel said.

It was true. She understood, as much as was possible, how intensely Tim did _not_ want to talk about what was probably the worst night of his life.

"I know it will be hard for you right now, Tim, and it may be for a while, but long term, this will help you. I promise."

"I don't want to talk about it," Tim said again.

She could see Tim withdrawing. She needed to find a way to stop the withdrawal before it was impossible to draw him out.

"Tim...you have a story that needs to be told. It's not just your story. It's the story of your whole family, and it needs to be known."

"Why?" Tim asked softly. "The only people who matter already knew it...and two of them are dead. They probably knew more than I do."

His eyes dropped to the floor.

"Because it's affected more than just your family, more than just you. Everyone you touch. That doesn't mean that you have to tell everyone your story, but finally telling it and really dealing with it, brings something hidden into the light." Rachel hesitated and then used one of the phrases Tim had used himself. "It will help put out that fire in your head."

Tim's head lifted and he stared at her in surprise.

"Really, Tim. It will. Don't be afraid of the past. Face it. Head on."

Tim took a couple of breaths.

Rachel wasn't sure she'd succeeded. The silence stretched out for a few minutes, until she was ready to move on to something less difficult and try to deal with this another time.

"I just wanted him to come home," Tim said softly.

And that was the key, she knew. Tim had wanted things to go back to normal and what he witnessed had made things so far from normal that it had probably felt like a punishment for wanting it.

"What did you do?" she asked, keeping her voice low and calm.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

 _When he got there, the lights were on in the house. It had taken a long time to get there. He hadn't known exactly how to get there, but he had heard Mommy talking about it._

 _He climbed up on the porch and looked in the window, trying to find Daddy._

 _Daddy was sitting on the couch with a strange woman. It made him feel sick to his stomach. Why was he with her? Why did he look so happy? He had promised not to forget!_

 _Instead of going inside or knocking on the door, Tim just stood, hidden in the shadows on the porch, watching his father being happy. He longed to feel that, too, but he didn't feel like he could join them._

 _He watched as Daddy started kissing the woman._

 _No! This was wrong! It was like Mommy with all those other men!_

 _He wanted to scream at Daddy to stop, but he didn't. He just watched...just like with Mommy._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim closed his eyes and shook his head.

"No. It's wrong," he said, softly. "I hated seeing it. It was wrong."

He wasn't screaming, but Rachel knew that he could easily get pushed to that if she didn't keep this going in the right way. But what she was seeing was yet another layer to why Tim get so uncomfortable with the idea of intimacy and sex. Seeing his father happy with another woman hadn't helped him understand what was normal. One stable influence probably would have saved him from a lot of pain and anguish, but it just hadn't happened.

"Why didn't you go home?"

"I couldn't leave. I don't know why not."

"It's all right, Tim. Remember that this has already happened. All you're doing is sharing a memory. It's hard, but you aren't going through it again."

Tim nodded and opened his eyes, again. The pain was still there, but she appreciated that he was trying to tell her.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

 _They went upstairs, turning off the lights as they left, and he was about to leave when he heard someone else coming._

 _He waited and watched, wondering who it would be. Who was coming to see his dad now? He pulled back into the darkness by the window._

 _Mommy!_

 _He wondered why she was here. She hated Daddy. He'd heard her say it often enough. She opened the door and walked in, making no noise. If Mommy could go inside, then, he could go inside, too. Maybe this would make Daddy see that he shouldn't be here. He should be with them._

 _He didn't want Mommy to see him, though. He was supposed to be at home in bed. He hid quickly when he saw Mommy go into the kitchen. He didn't dare follow her in there. Besides, Daddy was upstairs, not in the kitchen. Maybe she didn't know that. He waited, still hidden. Then, she came out of the kitchen with something in her hands. It was too dark to see what it was._

 _He kept quiet as he followed Mommy upstairs. It was so slow. It seemed to take forever._

 _Up the stairs to the only light._

 _Mommy stood quietly in the hallway, listening to the cheerful voices in the room. They still sounded so happy. It was so attractive that he almost ran to join them. He wanted to be happy again._

 _Then, the light in the room went out. The whole house was dark._

 _He started to feel strange again. This didn't seem right. Why was Mommy just standing there in the dark? What was she doing?_

 _He watched as Mommy walked to the door and opened it._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"I don't want to say any more!" Tim said, getting worked up.

In fact, he stood and started pacing.

"I don't want to remember it! I don't want to talk about it! I don't want to think about it! I don't want to see it in my head!" His voice got louder with each declaration and his breathing became erratic.

Rachel stood up as well, but she kept her movements slow and calm, trying not to feed Tim's panic and fear in any way.

"Finish the story, Tim," she said, keeping her voice low. "Just finish the story you have to tell. You don't have to face it alone. I'm here with you."

Tim looked at her and shook his head, mutely.

"Yes, Tim. Remember that if you face it head on, you can get past it. Don't shrink away, now that you've got this far."

He took a few deep breaths and then sat back down.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

" _I hate you!"_

 _That was what Mommy had said before, but this time she didn't just say it._

 _He watched as she swung the thing in her hand at Daddy's head. He heard a sickening crack and then another and another as Mommy kept moving her arms up and down. The woman got out one small exclamation and then there was another sickening crack._

" _You slut."_

 _Mommy didn't stop hitting them, and he couldn't stop watching her._

" _You shouldn't have left me," she said as she stopped moving, finally._

 _He was terrified. He didn't know what to do. Mommy would see him! She'd be so mad that he was here! He saw an open door and he ran into the room and hid, trying to keep from making any noise by stuffing his shirt into his mouth. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry. He didn't know what to do. He only knew that he couldn't let Mommy hear him or see him. He would have to get home before she did._

 _He was supposed to be home, in bed. He would get in such trouble if Mommy knew he'd got out of bed._

 _Mommy came out of the room, still with that thing in her hands. He watched through a crack in the door. She went down the stairs and he followed her. He would have to run so fast to get back home._

 _He looked back to the room. Daddy and the woman weren't moving. He took a couple of steps in that direction, but then, he couldn't make himself keep walking. He couldn't go into the bedroom. He couldn't go in there. Something really bad had happened in there. Worse than what Mommy had done with those men._

 _He left them and went down the stairs._

 _Then, he suddenly saw a light._

 _A flickering light. Mommy had lit a match. And in the light, he could see blood on her._

 _Blood._

 _There was blood on Mommy's face._

 _And he knew it wasn't her blood._

 _Blood on her face. Blood on her hands. Blood on her clothes._

 _He felt sick again._

 _There was a whoosh of sound and flames began to leap up all around the house, it seemed. It felt like the fire was everywhere._

 _A fire!_

 _Daddy would be in the fire!_

 _He turned back to the stairs, wanting to tell Daddy to get out...but then, he remembered what Mommy had done. He couldn't go and see it. With the light from the fire, he'd see things he shouldn't see._

 _No. He had to get out of the house._

 _Run back home._

 _Get in bed._

 _Never let anyone know he'd got out of bed._

 _He ran out the front door, down the porch steps and he didn't stop running until he got home. He got back in bed and hid under the covers, shaking with fear. He grabbed the scarf Daddy had given him and put it around his neck, rubbing at it, holding it tightly, wishing that he could wake up and have none of this have happened._

" _Please, let Daddy come home. Please, let Daddy come home. Please, let Daddy come home," he whispered over and over again._

 _But it was Mommy who came home._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"I'm so sorry, Tim," Rachel said.

Tim's head was in his hands and he was shaking, just a little bit, a sure sign of how upset he was.

"I just wanted him to come home," he said again, his voice cracking. "I wanted...h-him to come home."

Then, Tim started to sob. Crying as he'd probably never been able to cry for the loss of his father, for the destruction of his family, for the pain of a lifetime. Rachel sat down beside him and put one arm around his shoulders. She didn't want to be too familiar, but at the same time, Tim needed someone to comfort him right at this moment when he was fully facing the loss of his innocence. Comfort was something he'd never received, had never expected.

All his life, Tim had locked away what he knew, thinking about it as little as possible, telling no one, believing that the only option he had was to suffer in silence. But as a little boy, he couldn't do that and it had broken him down with his only option being to try to rebuild himself with no help from anyone. No help from his mother who was one of the main sources of his trouble. No help from his teachers who had never bothered to see that he needed help. No help from a single person. ...until Mary had come to Hazard and given him a glimpse of happiness again. It was happiness he hadn't trusted and it had been tenuous at best, but it was more than he'd had his whole life. Ducky had begun to try helping him, but not in the same way. It was just that it had all come after so many years of thinking it wasn't possible.

Tim continued to sob wordlessly, shaking as he cried. Unless it came to the point that he obviously couldn't stop, she would let him get this out.

This would take a long time to deal with. There were so many tendrils, so many ways it had affected him, but this was the first step, and it was important that he feel able to share and able to show how he felt about it. It had taken more trauma to get Tim to talk about things he didn't want to address, but in the end, it had helped. Every moment that he had been willing to talk before had made this possible. He couldn't have told her before. He barely had been able to tell Gibbs that first time.

She really wanted this to be the first rung on the ladder that would lead him out of the pit he'd been in for most of his life.

After a while, the sobs began to ebb. Tim was breathing loudly and shakily, and Rachel figured that he'd be tired out, both by what he'd shared and by the emotions he'd expressed.

"Tim?"

"Y-Yeah?"

"Thank you for telling me."

He didn't reply to that.

"When they s-said I...I did it... All I c-could think about was... the sound and the blood. ...and then, the...the fire burning them up."

And the lingering trauma had only been intensified by the police suggesting that he had been the one to inflict all that violence on one of his parents. It didn't matter that they were only thinking about the fire. _Tim_ had known it was more than a fire.

Why had he become fixated on the fire? Maybe it was just that it was what he'd been accused of doing. He'd also seen his mother set the fire that had obscured the murder. From what Rachel had read of the house, the roof had collapsed on the bedroom, meaning that the bodies had been damaged to the extent that it had been easy to miss the details. ...but then, while the fire had been what everyone else had focused on because it was so obvious, the monsters themselves had claws. They tore up the house. They ate the people inside. They weren't just flames. They were violent. They were killers. They attacked and destroyed. They were physically destructive beings, all under the control of Tim's shadowy mother. That was why Tim's teachers had been so disturbed by what he drew, even if they hadn't realized it. The pictures were of violence and pain: a visual manifestation of the torment in Tim's mind.

Tim took a couple of shuddering breaths as he began to calm down.

"Do I have to talk about anything...else?" he asked in a whisper.

"No, Tim. Not today. I'm glad you told me. It was hard to do it, I know, but it's an important beginning to getting control of your life."

She could see that very little of what she'd said to him was getting in. Tim had almost been pushed too far, but he had made it through giving the details he hated so much.

After all this, it was important that he had a positive experience to balance out how hard telling his story had been. She wasn't sure what would be best for him, but she did know that he needed something.

For now, however, she wanted to make sure that Tim was not alone. So she let the silence reign and she just sat beside him, letting him calm down.


	42. Chapter 42

**Chapter 42**

"No sign of your sister," Tony said.

"Nope," Kate said.

"Do you think they're still talking? It's been a couple of hours."

"I don't know. It would be a long session for her. She usually doesn't go that long."

"What do you think she's talking to him about?"

"Pick from the list," Kate said. "There are so many things that Tim could be getting help for. The nice thing is that, no matter what she's doing, it'll help in the end."

"Hopefully."

"No, it will. If she gives an effort, which I know she will, and if Tim makes an attempt, something will change for the better. I don't know if it'll be enough, but it _will_ be something good."

"It needs to be enough," Tony said.

"For once, Tony, I completely agree with you," Kate said, smiling.

The door to the conference room opened and Rachel came out, looking lost in thought. They both stared at her as she walked.

"Rachel?" Kate called.

Startled, Rachel looked at them and smiled. She changed her trajectory and headed right toward them.

"You've been in there a long time."

"Not doing much for the last little while," Rachel said. "Tim needed some time."

"Time for what?"

"To calm down from sharing what I'd guess is the worst memory he has. Have you seen Gibbs?"

Tony shook his head. "Not for the last hour, but that doesn't mean he's not around. Why?"

"I just wanted to talk to him about Tim before he leaves. Tim needs something positive to round out this day. What he went through with me wasn't pleasant. It was very hard, and I'm sure he ended up feeling shaky, at best. I don't want that to be all his day becomes. He needs something fun, if possible, but just enjoyable, at least. Doesn't matter what it is or with whom. He needs to learn that life can be good. It isn't just about pain and death."

"What do you think we should do?" Kate asked. "It's not like we really know him that well. We don't know what he would enjoy, and we definitely don't know what he really wouldn't. ...and we don't know that he would say anything if we asked him."

"I know," Rachel said. "But it really doesn't have to be anything elaborate. Heck, you could take him to get ice cream for that matter. I doubt he's had many opportunities to do something that simple."

"And who could say no to ice cream?" Tony said.

"A vegan?" Kate suggested.

"Oh, they can't give it up, either. That's why they try to make fake ice cream that tastes just like real ice cream."

Kate laughed.

"Don't let them hear you say that."

"Seriously, though, do you really think that would be something he'd like?" Tony asked.

"I don't know, either," Rachel said, "but it wouldn't hurt to suggest it."

"What's he doing right now?"

"Sleeping, actually," Rachel said. "He calmed down and then, said he was tired. I stayed with him until he lay down. He said he wanted to be alone for a while, but I don't want to leave him by himself for too long. If he had family or close friends, I'd send him home and tell them to stay with him, but he doesn't have that."

"There's Ducky," Tony said. "He's not a close friend necessarily, but he does know Tim better than we do."

"Is he out of the hospital, though?"

"We could ask him," Kate said. "We know that he cares about Tim. He's the one who started all this, after all."

"But he'll have to come here," Tony said. "Gibbs is adamant that Tim isn't going back to Hazard."

"And he shouldn't," Rachel said. "Tim can't deal with that, right now. He needs to be away from it until he's mentally recovered enough to face all those negative experiences again. We're just introducing him the idea that life can be good, and Hazard was not good for him. He needs separation from all that until he knows that he has hope for a better life than he's had up to now."

"Let's see what he wants to do at the end of the day. Maybe you could get him to go and hang out with Abby again," Tony said. "She got him doing computer stuff and he was relaxed until he remembered that he wasn't."

"We'll see. If you see Gibbs, let him know I'm looking for him, okay?"

"Will do."

"Thanks."

Rachel left them and they saw her head back to the conference room.

"What do you think he told her?" Kate asked.

"It has to be about his parents. The worst day of his life, I'm sure."

"Yeah. I want to know details, but at the same time, I _really_ don't want to know the details of what made Tim the way he is."

"What we know is enough...and bad enough," Tony agreed. "I guess it would be important for him to share it, but if that's what they were doing in there, no wonder she wants him to have something to look forward to, something good."

"This has really got to you, hasn't it," Kate said.

"Yeah. I don't know why, considering all the cases we've investigated before."

"Maybe you see yourself?"

"No. I know that's not it. I can't imagine going through something like Tim has. I think part of it is...knowing that he's had all this crap for his whole life. We saw a picture of him when he was a kid. He was happy. Then, he really wasn't. And he was basically the same as an adult as he was when he was a kid. That's almost a lifetime of things being so bad. That sucks."

"Yeah."

"And except for Ducky, he doesn't have anyone to fight for him. If we weren't willing to do it..."

"Then, it's a good thing we are. He won't ever get left alone, now. You know that Gibbs won't allow it, even if someone else would. Gibbs will never let Tim fall through the cracks. No matter what."

Tony nodded, and he knew that Kate was right. Tim had got to Gibbs, too, and once Gibbs had decided to help someone, that was the end of it. He wouldn't change his mind, no matter how hard it got.

As much as Tim could, he would be helped. He might not understand the impulse everyone had to help him, but he'd get the help.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling. It was amazing how empty and dull he felt right now. So much of his life had been full of fear, anxiety, pain, repressed rage, grief and every other negative thing that to feel nothing was almost a relief. It was as if putting words to those horrible moments had drained the emotion attached to them completely away. Would it last? Probably not. He didn't see how it was possible that he could feel nothing forever, but for now, it really was nice.

He didn't know what time it was. He didn't know if anyone was in the room with him. He didn't know what would come next.

All he knew was that he felt nothing and that was just fine.

After a few minutes, he heard the sound of someone shifting position. He sat up quickly and looked around.

Rachel was sitting at the table with a lot of paper in front of her. She appeared to be working on something.

Then, he had that passing feeling that he was looking at his mother, and he tried to figure out why. Rachel was, far and away, more comforting than his mother had ever been. She didn't look like his mother. She didn't sound like her. So why, then?

Tim didn't know.

Rachel looked up from her papers and smiled.

"How are you feeling, Tim?"

Tim tried to think of something more descriptive to explain how he felt, but nothing came to mind.

"Empty," he said, finally. "...and I don't mind that."

"That doesn't surprise me, either part. I'm not going to ask you any other questions today, probably not tomorrow, either. So just try to relax as much as you can. There might be other things that will cause some tension, but don't worry about having to answer more questions about what you told me."

"For now."

"For now, but I don't want to push you too far, Tim. You need time to adjust to it. When you're ready, we'll move on, but not until then."

"Why don't I feel anything?"

Rachel looked at him fully.

"I can't say for sure, but part of it, I think, is because you've spent so long hiding it that, there's a feeling of relief just to know that you're not keeping that secret anymore."

"But that feels wrong."

"Why, Tim?"

"Because...she was my mother," Tim said. "...but he was my father and..." He shook his head. "...but I can't...make it fit in my head."

"Of course, you can't. Tim, you have had a struggle that most people don't ever have to deal with. You can't make it fit. It won't. That's why you talk about it and try to let it go as much as possible." She kept his eyes on her. "You witnessed your mother killing your father, and that is not okay. It's not right for you, and it wasn't the right thing for your mother to do. It wasn't right for your father to leave you behind, if that's what he did. We don't know that part. You are not the one in the wrong, here. You are the injured party, and so you deserve to get through this and find a future that is unmarred by what your parents did."

"Is that even possible?"

"Possible? Absolutely. Certain? No. It depends on what you're willing to do."

"What do I have to do?"

"Keep going," Rachel said. "Once you start, you need to keep up the fight because it'll be hard. I'm not going to pretend that it won't be. You have to be willing to deal with that, not by yourself. Never alone, but you still need to accept the struggle."

"How hard will it be?"

Rachel smiled. "I don't know. I just know it will be hard."

"How long will it take?"

"I don't know that, either, but you will have support no matter how long it takes."

"What now?"

"Now, you relax as much as you can."

"I don't feel relaxed," Tim said. "I feel empty."

There was a soft knock on the door. Rachel looked questioningly at him. Tim was surprised to realize that she was letting him decide whether or not to let in whoever it was.

He stood up, hesitated and walked to the door. Then, he opened it.

"Hey, Tim," Tony said. "How's it going?"

Tim shrugged.

"Well, we're going to take a break, and we were thinking you might want to come with us."

"Where?"

Tony grinned. "To get ice cream, believe it or not. There's this place that has the best gelato."

"What's gelato?"

" _Really_ good ice cream. Want to come with us?"

"Who is us?"

"Me, Kate, and Abby, if she has the time."

"Right now?"

"Yeah."

Tim thought about it, and he had to admit that the idea of doing something so simple was nice, even if he wasn't sure about doing it with these people he barely knew. He looked back at Rachel. She smiled as if she knew what he was thinking. Then, he looked back at Tony.

"Um...okay."

He followed Tony out of the room and went outside with him. Kate and Abby were both outside already.

"Great! You're coming!" Abby said, as if it was the most wonderful thing in the world to see him.

Tim couldn't get used to having someone greet him with glee rather than wariness. It made _him_ feel wary. He tried to smile, but he was pretty sure that it wasn't very impressive. To his surprise, it didn't put any of them off at all. They just smiled back and gestured for him to follow.

Again, they walked instead of drove. Tim wasn't sure if this was normal for them. He drove very rarely. Gas was expensive and, technically, he didn't have a license to drive anyway. He wondered if any of them had realized that. He'd learned to drive, but they'd only got him a valid license twice. After that, especially after his mother had died, Tim just hadn't bothered. It cost money he didn't have, and he drove so rarely anyway.

Walking down the sidewalk with people was so strange. It was like he was a normal person out with friends. He knew that most people did things like this all the time, but he really never had. He could only imagine the looks he would have gotten if he and Mary had ever actualy gone anywhere together.

 _No one knows who you are here,_ he thought. _No one will automatically think you're weird._

Of course, Tim didn't have any real hope that he could act at all normally, but he guessed that it didn't make sense to intentionally act like the freak he was.

The ice cream place looked packed as they approached. Tim guessed that Tony must not have been lying about that gelato stuff. Gelato. It was a word he'd never heard before. He was quite certain that it hadn't been sold anywhere in Hazard. He'd definitely never had it in school. The way Tony talked about it, it was just fancy ice cream, but still...

"Here we are. They have lots of choices, and I'm thinking we should do double-deckers...unless your diet doesn't allow for that, Kate?" Tony asked, grinning.

"I'm not dieting, Tony. I just eat healthy and one of the nice things about eating healthy is that I can indulge like this every once in a while without getting a little thick around the middle."

Tim almost smiled as Tony patted his stomach and declared that he was completely ripped with no thickness.

Then, out of nowhere, he was suddenly afraid. He backed up a step or two.

"What's wrong, Tim?" Kate asked.

"Uh...I..." Tim looked at the flickering lights, the people laughing and talking inside.

"Too many people?" Abby suggested.

Tim shook his head. That definitely wasn't it. People didn't scare him.

"Do you want to leave?" Tony asked.

He was surprised when they just waited for him to answer. Didn't push, didn't look at him like he was nuts.

"I don't belong here," he said softly. "It's too...normal. They're all happy. I'm not. I'm not...part of this kind of thing."

But at the same time, that longing he'd felt as a child washed over him, and he _wanted_ to be happy like all the people in the ice cream shop were. He hadn't let himself feel that desire in a long time. Maybe it showed in face because Abby walked over to him and hooked her arm through his.

"There's no rule about being happy," she said. "Besides, that's what ice cream does. It makes you happy. So if you get some ice cream, you'll fit in more."

She smiled encouragingly at him, and he found himself, almost unwillingly, smiling back.

"You ready to try it?" she asked.

"Uh...sure." Something about Abby reminded him of Mary. It definitely wasn't looks, but there was a complete disregard for how strange he truly was that Mary had shown as well. He liked it.

"Good."

"And Tony's buying. You have no idea how rare it is that he's willing to pay for _anything_ ," Kate said, smiling.

"I pay!"

"Once in a blue moon, Tony," Kate said.

Finally, Tim allowed himself to be walked into the shop. Together, they walked to the counter and Tim saw an array of trays filled with ice cream...or rather, _gelato_. It was a rainbow of colors, some with things mixed in, others just a smooth ice cream. How could he make a choice from this menagerie?

"Are you a chocolate or fruit fan, Tim?" Kate asked.

"I don't know," Tim said. "I never really had to make that choice."

"Oh, their coffee gelato is to die for," Tony said. "You should try it."

"Okay," Tim said, relieved to have the choice made for him. Then, he remembered that there was another choice to make. He looked. Some of the names he'd never even heard of before, but maybe that was the adventure. How bad could ice cream be, after all?

"What else do you want?" Kate asked.

Tim pointed. "Stracciatella...or however you say it."

"Good choice," Tony said.

Kate got a lemon and a raspberry. Abby chose custard and amarena. Tony got tiramisu and chocolate. After they got their gelato, instead of staying in the shop, they left and started walking along the sidewalk again, licking at their cones.

"What do you think of it, Tim?" Tony asked.

Tim looked at the gelato.

"It's good."

"Better than ice cream?"

"I don't know," Tim said, wondering if there was going to be some kind of a quiz.

"Come on, Tony. Just because it's Italian, doesn't mean that he needs to think it's the best thing ever," Abby said. "He likes it. That's enough."

Tony smiled.

"Okay, okay. But it's good?"

"Yeah," Tim said. He took another bite, just to show that he wasn't kidding.

Tony laughed.

"Don't worry, Tim. I'm not going to be offended if you don't like it."

"I do!"

Tim tried to smile again, but he was still a bit tense. The strange thing was that none of them reacted to him the way the people in Hazard always had, and Tim knew that, while he wasn't having the freakouts of his childhood, he still wasn't acting like a normal human being.

They just kept walking. The others talked, including Tim when it was possible, but mostly, he was just with them.

And yet, there was something comforting about it because he was part of this group in a way that he'd _never_ been part of any group at any time in his life.

At the same time, it made him nervous because he didn't see how it could possibly continue on. Wouldn't they get tired of him, eventually? He couldn't decide whether he wanted to try to enjoy it while it lasted or stop it so that he didn't get used to it only to have it stolen away from him and leave him worse than he had been.

They kept walking with Tim unsure of how to take this situation. Finally, he couldn't stand it any longer.

"Why are you all doing this?" he asked.

They stopped walking.

"I barely know you. You barely know me, and I can't imagine that there's anything about me you really like, but you're treating me like..." He hesitated. "...like Mary did, like I'm normal, even though I know I'm not. Everyone does. But she knew me and she didn't really have any other options, anyway. Why are you doing this? And when will it stop? I don't...want to...expect it and lose it."

There was a moment of silence and, carefully holding her cone out of the way, Abby walked up to him and hugged him tightly. Tim tensed, but the hug only lasted a few seconds and then she stood back.

"Tim, _that's_ why we're doing this. Because you don't think it can happen. You don't think that anyone cares. _We_ care. We really do, and it's not just because of the case. It's because you need someone to care, and because we can see that you're so much more than what you've been. We don't give up like that...unless you want us to." Then, she grinned. "And maybe not even then."

The feeling of wanting to belong was stronger than ever, but Tim just couldn't allow himself to give in to it. It would be too hard. But it was so nice to have someone say they cared about him, whether it was true or not.

For now, he couldn't reject it.

So he kept eating his gelato and they walked back to the building. Then, Gibbs said it was time to leave and he went back to Gibbs' house.


	43. Chapter 43

**Chapter 43**

Rachel was sitting at Kate's desk when they got back. She didn't say anything until Tim and Gibbs had gone.

"How did it go?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Tony said.

"Why? What happened?"

"It was kind of strange," Kate said. "We got the ice cream and we were walking back when Tim just stopped and asked us why we were doing this and when we were going to give up."

"And he looked so sad," Abby said. "It was like he was already ready for us to walk away but, at the same time, he seemed to want it _so_ bad. I just had to hug him, but he got pretty tense, so I didn't hug him for long."

"That doesn't surprise me, Abby," Rachel said. "His perceptions of physical closeness are pretty skewed."

"But it feels like nothing changed," Tony said. "He wasn't any happier when he left just now than he was when he went with us. It doesn't seem like it helped."

"No, Tony," Rachel said. "It's really important that you did this. You're not going to see the results right away. It'll take a long time and repeated attempts, but you have to start somewhere, and Tim needs people willing to be there for the long haul. He won't believe that you'll do it until you've done it, and it will be hard for him to accept it, but if you take the time, eventually, it will make a _huge_ difference, because you're right, Abby. He _really_ wants it. He wants that normal life he was never able to have. This is helping whether you can tell right now or not."

"And tonight?"

"Tonight won't seem like an improvement, not to anyone."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim sat down on the couch, but he didn't look all that interested in sleeping. Gibbs could guess why. When Rachel had warned him about Tim's possible problems tonight, she hadn't given him any details, but she didn't need to. Gibbs knew the basics and what he knew told him that Tim had been royally screwed up by his mother (and his father to a lesser extent), whether she had ever realized it or not. He didn't need details to understand that. He just needed to know that Tim had given them to someone for the first time.

"Tired?" he asked.

"No," Tim said. "I'm not going to sleep."

Gibbs walked over and sat on the chair.

"Why not?"

"You know why not," Tim said. "Dr. Cranston must have told you."

"No," Gibbs said. "She doesn't share those kinds of details without permission from you. I only know what _you_ told me."

"That's enough."

"Yeah, it is...but you slept before."

"I've never said it before. I've never thought about it...not consciously, since it happened. She made me think about it. I can still see it in my head as if it happened just...yesterday. I still don't know what she used. It was too dark."

"Doesn't matter."

"No. I guess not." Tim swallowed hard and closed his eyes. "I don't want to dream about it. What I see when I'm in control of my mind is bad enough. If I go to sleep, it'll be worse."

"Can't stay awake forever."

"I know. Oh, do I know that," Tim said, his voice full of despair. "It never really goes away completely, but before all this, I had learned to push it all the way to the back of my mind. I didn't even have to think about it, consciously. It was there. It made my life miserable, but I didn't have to think about the fact that I was...living with a murderer...that she was my mother. But it still came out, no matter how I tried to push it away."

"Better to accept it. It won't go away. Never does completely, but it doesn't have to hurt so much. It fades."

Tim shook his head, not making eye contact. He was staring at the floor. Gibbs wondered if it was worse that he'd never actually seen what his father had looked like because it left his mind free to supply any image it might want to which could be worse than what it actually was, but at the same time, if Tim's mother had hit them both hard enough to kill them, the results probably wouldn't have been pleasant.

"I've lived with this most of my life, Agent Gibbs. It's not going to fade."

"You never had the chance to let it fade. You have that now."

He shook his head again. "I watched my mother..." Tim closed his eyes and swallowed. "...beat my father's head in. That doesn't fade. It never fades."

"It does."

"When, then? If it fades, how many more years do I have to wait for that to happen?"

"Tim."

That's all Gibbs said. Then, he waited, letting the silence descend. He waited until Tim finally lifted his eyes from the floor. Tim looked up. For just a moment, there was that desperate hope in his eyes. The childlike desire to be told that everything was going to be all right. He'd seen it before. Tim hadn't had that for a long time, if ever. Had his mother ever told him that after his father had left? Had his father ever reassured his son like that? Tim had been forced to learn that it wasn't coming, that it would _never_ come.

But that didn't remove the hope for it. It was the child's wish for someone to make it better, and Gibbs was finding that he really wanted to do that.

"It fades when you get the help you've needed. It can't fade if you don't let it exist, first."

"I still don't want to go to sleep."

Gibbs smiled.

"All right. Then, come with me."

"Where?"

"To the basement."

Eyebrow raised, Tim stood and followed Gibbs down the stairs.

"Now, what?"

Gibbs handed Tim the slick he'd shown him the night before and pointed to a board set up in braces.

"Now, you start working on that wood. Get it smooth."

"What if I ruin it?"

"You won't. It's just wood."

Actually, he _could_ ruin it, but Gibbs didn't care about that right now. He cared about Tim being relaxed enough to sleep, and woodworking wouldn't have any personal connotations for him. He could do something that would ease his mind and then, hopefully, he'd get tired.

Tim started tentatively using the slick. Clumsily, yes, but he was doing it. He gave side glances at Gibbs, as if he was worried about being punished for doing it wrong, but he kept at it.

After a few minutes, Gibbs nodded and went to work himself.

It was silent in the basement except for the sound of metal against wood.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Fornell pulled off the interstate at a rest area. He needed some shut-eye before continuing on his way. Diane had been ambivalent about his leaving and choosing to drive rather than fly. It was a over a thousand miles from DC to Lincoln. He didn't know what he was getting into. Surely, there wasn't so much urgency that he had to take emergency leave from work.

...but she also wanted to fulfill her stepmother's dying wish.

On Fornell's side, there was a hefty dose curiosity. He also thought that there just might be something that required a quick response, and he hadn't taken any vacation days this year. Might as well use them for something worthwhile. He and Diane didn't travel much, and driving would be cheaper.

At this point, however, he was really tired, and sleep had to take precedence over getting to Nebraska.

 _This had better be worth it,_ he thought to himself.

Then, he reclined the seat and tried to get some sleep.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

There was a soft snore and Gibbs turned away from his work. Tim had pillowed his head on his arms and, while sitting on the stool, he'd fallen asleep. Not really the best place. There was no telling what would happen if he was startled by something. He'd likely fall right off the stool. He could easily simply slump right off it, too. In both cases, he wouldn't be asleep for long.

At the same time, Gibbs was loath to wake Tim up when he'd managed to fall asleep. Maybe there was some way to awaken him enough to get him to walk but not enough to get him thinking consciously about what he was doing.

It was worth a shot. If he failed, Tim would be awake anyway.

Gibbs set down the wood and walked over to Tim. Slowly, carefully, he pulled Tim upright.

"Come on, Tim. Time to get some sleep," he said, keeping his voice soft and slow.

Tim's eyes fluttered open.

"It's all right. Let's just get you back to the couch." No mention of a bed. Why make things worse?

Tim allowed Gibbs to lift him to his feet. He was awake, but he wasn't really connected. That was what Gibbs was hoping for. Carefully, he led Tim to the stairs. Rather than expect Tim to really do it without waking up all the way, Gibbs basically lifted Tim up the stairs.

"What's...she doing?" Tim asked vaguely.

"Nothing. It's all right. Just relax."

"What is it?" Tim asked.

"Nothing. It's all right."

Through the kitchen and to the couch. Gibbs eased Tim down onto the couch, hoping that he would go back to sleep without any trouble.

"Did I ruin the...wood?"

"No. You did fine. Go back to sleep."

Eventually, Tim's eyes closed and he did seem to return to his slumber without any problem. Gibbs wasn't sure if this would last all night. Rachel had been worried about how Tim would cope this first night after sharing the details of his father's murder.

For now, at least, Tim was sleeping, and any sleep was good. A full night undisturbed would be better.

Then, Gibbs had to decide whether he'd sleep down here again or in his own room. He decided to go to bed. Knowing someone was available if he had problems was not the same as having someone staring at him at all times. Better that Tim learn he could ask even if someone wasn't immediately to hand.

He walked up the stairs as quietly as he could and went to bed, hoping for a good night's sleep.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

 _The ground shook with each step the monster took. It came closer and closer to where he cowered, hoping to be hidden from its ferocity._

" _I know you're there."_

 _The voice wasn't the fierce monster voice he'd expected. It was soft and feminine._

" _You weren't supposed to get out of bed."_

 _The ground shook again and suddenly, he was fully exposed. There was nowhere to hide except for a bed._

 _The bed was bleeding._

 _A pool of blood was growing larger and larger around it._

" _How many times do I have to tell you?"_

 _He turned back to the monster. It raised a claw high above its head, still speaking with the incongruous voice. He couldn't move for fear._

" _You shouldn't have left me."_

 _The claw came down, and he started to scream in fear and terror._

"It's all right, Tim. It's all right."

The strange voice cut through the nightmare and pulled Tim abruptly from his imminent death...to the couch in Gibbs' house.

"It's all right. Calm down. It's all right."

Tim opened his eyes and looked around for the monster. Everything was strange and unfamiliar.

"I didn't leave," he said. "I didn't leave! I stayed. I stayed."

"Tim, wake up. It's all right."

He looked around for the source of the strange voice and realized that it was Gibbs himself.

Who else could it have been in Gibbs' house when it was still dark outside?

Embarrassed, even while the terror surged through him, Tim stared fixedly at the floor rather than look at Gibbs.

"Tim?"

"S-Sorry for...w-waking you up," he said.

"It's all right."

"No, it's not. It's like I'm a child," Tim said. "I learned not to do this. I don't know why it's coming back again."

"Learned not to? You mean because you were afraid of your mother?"

Tim sniffed and tried to get himself back in control. It was like, ever since these people had come, his life had started unraveling. The problem was that he didn't know whether or not that was a bad thing. He didn't look up.

"Before all this...the last time I woke up screaming was...after Mom died. I found her, you know. In her room. In bed. I didn't want to go in, but it was so quiet. I sat there and stared at the door for a long time. Then, finally...I forced myself to open it. She was just lying there. It was like she was asleep, but she was so still. So still."

He could still see her lying there. He had been terrified of walking over to her. Afraid of what he might see.

"I didn't want to go back in there after I called. So I sat on the couch and watched people walk in and out of the room. I don't know how I felt. Everything just seemed to stop. Everything in my life was gone, and I didn't know how to feel. I had nightmares. I screamed. But now, there was no one there to hear me."

"It's all right, Tim."

There was a hand on his back, but Tim still wouldn't look up.

"It was like there was no world left...until I saw Mary."

"I'm sorry."

"Me, too," Tim said and forced a laugh. "That's why I didn't want to sleep. I knew I'd have a nightmare. I don't want to start that, again."

"Start it and let it stop naturally, instead of because you're afraid of being punished for it. You won't be."

"You sure about that?"

"Positive."

"You're not sick of me?"

"Nope."

"You should be."

"I'm not."

"I'm not doing this on purpose."

"Didn't think you were."

Finally, Tim lifted his head and looked at Gibbs. Instead of the censure he had expected, there was simply sympathy.

"Why do you care about me?" Tim asked. "Why do any of you care?"

"Because you need us to."

"That's not a reason."

"Only reason there is."

"But there has to be something more than that."

"No."

"What about when I don't need that?"

Gibbs actually smiled.

"Will that ever be the case?"

Tim didn't know how to answer that. He still wasn't sure about having all these people in his life as it was.

"You should try to get some more sleep."

"I don't want to."

"Try anyway."

Then, Tim watched as Gibbs settled down on a chair, clearly preparing to be there for the rest of the night. Part of him wanted to tell Gibbs that he didn't need him there, but most of him was feeling relieved that there would be a period of time when he wasn't alone, when the fears he had could be tempered by another human being. Would it stop the nightmares completely? Probably not. Nothing ever had before, but still...

Tim took a breath and lay down again.

"Sleep well."

"I wish I could," he said softly.

Then, he closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Fornell woke up and decided to walk around a bit to get his mind back in gear.

Then, it was time to start driving again.

Lincoln was still a long way away.


	44. Chapter 44

**Chapter 44**

Kate was in early, anticipating the coming warrant. She really hoped that this would pan out. Part of her couldn't help thinking that it _had_ to. If there was any justice in the world, they'd be able to get Sheriff Drake for what she was sure he had done.

She also wondered how late Gibbs would be this morning. What was Tim's night going to have been like after what Rachel had told them?

As she sat there, suddenly, she was curious and picked up Mary's journal from Gibbs' desk. This couldn't tell her anything about Tim's past, but it could still tell her more about Mary and how Mary viewed Tim.

She flipped through it, looking for something that would introduce her more to Mary's life and outlook.

 _I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. I dropped out of college to take care of Dad, but even when I was in Omaha, I didn't know what I wanted. Now, even though I hate being here, it's all I think about. I barely think about going back to college. I was kind of coasting through the generals, just enjoying being away from home. When I finally have a chance to go back, what am I going to do? It'll be strange to have no home anymore. It hasn't been much, but it's been a permanent place. I guess I could look at Marty. He'd always let me come for holidays and stuff, but it won't be the same. It's strange, though. They don't call Dad at all. I'm not necessarily sympathetic to Dad all the time, but it's kind of sad that they can't be bothered to talk to him ever._

 _It's getting close to sunset. I'll bet Tim is at the river._

 _It's sad, but it's almost comforting to know that there's someone in the world more lost than I am._

Kate had found that Mary was not particularly complicated, really. It was tempting to turn her into a kind of tragic heroine simply because of how she had died, but in reality, she was a young woman who didn't know what she wanted out of life and was trying to get through it as best she could. There were challenges she had that not everyone had, but at the same time, she probably hadn't seen herself as exceptional, either. Even her friendship with Tim had mostly begun out of boredom and a desire to rebel just a little bit against her father.

But what she had done with that had been important. It had helped Tim, even if, ultimately, it had contributed to her death. Tim wouldn't consider it a good tradeoff. Kate didn't dare consider whether it was or not. Perhaps even Mary herself wouldn't have thought it was a good enough trade to be worth it. At the end of the day, however, it didn't matter because Mary had already paid that price. They could only deal with it.

"Kate, you're looking very pensive for someone who is on the verge of triumph," Tony said as he walked into the office. "What's up? Something fall through on the warrant?"

"It better not have," Kate said. "No, I was just thinking about Mary Fields."

"Yeah. It's too bad that no one else realized what she was going through."

"Yeah. Have you heard from Gibbs?"

"Nope. I'm guessing he'll be late again."

"Probably."

"Agent Todd, Agent DiNozzo."

They both turned.

"Good morning, Director," Tony said quickly. "Gibbs isn't in yet."

"I can see that," Morrow said. "His warrant came through. Let him know that he'd better follow this to the letter. I don't want to be getting an official complaint about my agents simply because he got too eager and overstepped the bounds. This is an elected law officer. He knows what is permissible and what isn't. If you go too far, he'll use it to his advantage, guilty or innocent."

"Yes, Director," Kate said, knowing, even if Morrow didn't, that she was really the one who was overeager. She was the one who needed to be sure to keep herself in check on this.

"Good." He turned and started to leave, but then, he stopped and turned. "And tell Agent Gibbs I need to speak to him when he gets in."

"Yes, sir," Kate said.

"Thank you."

Morrow left them to their own devices and Kate could feel the excitement building up inside her. Tony smiled.

"I can see that you're ready," he said. "It probably had better be me or Gibbs doing this. I don't trust you not to beat him senseless."

Kate rolled her eyes. "I won't beat him senseless, even if he does deserve it, but it had better be you, anyway. No reason to invite controvery by having a coed body search."

"I don't know. Could be a good idea for you to do it. Maybe Sheriff Drake would find that arousing."

"Yuck! I don't care if he does!"

Tony's phone rang. He looked at the display.

"It's Gibbs," he said and then answered. "Hey, Boss. How was it?"

Kate raised her eyebrow at Tony as he listened and then winced.

"What is it?" she asked.

 _Nightmare,_ Tony mouthed at her.

Kate assumed that he meant Tim had a nightmare, and given the kinds of things he'd dealt with, it had probably been a doozy.

"Tell him we got the warrant."

"Kate said that we got the warrant. Morrow just came by to tell us. He also wants to talk to you."

Kate waited while Tony was getting instructions, she assumed.

"Okay, Boss. See you." He hung up.

"So?" Kate asked.

"He says that Tim had a really bad nightmare last night and that he actually started screaming."

Kate winced. "Oh, that's terrible."

"Yeah. Tim didn't go back to sleep for quite a while. He's still asleep right now. Gibbs doesn't want us to start with Sheriff Drake until he gets here."

"I figured that. Sheriff Drake is still in the county seat jail, isn't he?"

"Yeah. At least, he'd better be."

"We'll need to let his attorney know about this."

"He probably already does."

"Yeah, but I don't want to give him any excuse."

"Kate, we're going to do this. It's coming. It might seem like it's taking forever, but it's coming."

"I know."

"We're going to finish this. And maybe it'll happen today."

"I can only hope."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

As he had the day before, Gibbs watched Tim sleep on the couch. It had taken more than an hour for Tim to relax enough to sleep again, and Gibbs had become drowsy in that same time. There were a few moments when Tim's eyes had opened, but then, when he had seen Gibbs sitting on the chair, they had closed again. He might not _want_ to sleep, but his body was telling him that he _needed_ to.

Eventually, Tim had slept. It wasn't a particularly deep and restful sleep based on how much Tim had moved around, but sleep was sleep. Gibbs had allowed himself to sleep more, but he had awakened early, wanting to be sure that he was awake when Tim woke up.

As he waited, he considered what more Tim had told him. What a complicated mess it was. Even without Mary's murder and Sheriff Drake's cruelty, Tim had been awash in problems. What had it been like for him as a child, growing up knowing that his mother was a murderer? What had it been like, living in fear? Then, when Margaret McGee had died, he had the additional problem of possibly seeing it as freedom, but at the same time, as losing the only family he had left.

While he knew that Tim would make his life very complicated, Gibbs had no intention of giving up on him. The more he learned of what Tim had been forced to deal with, the more determined he was to get Tim out of that miasma.

Tim woke up rather suddenly, as he had the day before.

This time, however, he didn't freak out. He'd said that he had learned not to react so violently, and it appeared that he'd managed it again. Instant suppression of whatever he wanted to express. Gibbs debated about whether or not he should insist but then, he decided it wasn't his place to force Tim to feel those things over and over again.

Better to try to help him start off the day on a positive note.

"Morning," he said.

"You don't have to be here every morning, Agent Gibbs. I didn't have anyone waiting for me to wake up for most of my life."

"I know that," Gibbs said. He got up and walked into the kitchen to make some coffee. He listened and heard Tim get up and go into the bathroom. He smiled. What he hoped was that Tim would start to see what he could have. Gibbs didn't kid himself that he would make up for a lifetime, but hopefully, it would start the path to a real future.

His phone rang as he was getting his mug out.

"Gibbs," he said.

" _Hey, Boss. It's Stan."_

"What's up?"

" _You wanted information on Sheriff Drake. I've got another piece of your puzzle."_

"What is it?"

" _Sheriff Drake was seen going to the river around the time Mary must have been killed."_

"By whom?"

" _The old high school principal. He's a bit paranoid about kids playing pranks and he's watching out his windows a lot. He lives right by the road Tim usually took to get to the river."_

"And he saw Sheriff Drake there?"

" _He saw Tim go there, but he says that Tim did not have time to kill Mary because he was running back to town just a minute after he went there."_

"But Sheriff Drake was there longer?"

" _Yes. He came after Tim left and Henry never saw him come back. There's another way to go to get back to town and he could have taken that way, but the plain fact of the matter is that no one saw Sheriff Drake in town where he usually was when he went on patrol and one person saw him at the crime scene."_

"You have all the documentation?"

" _Come on, Gibbs. You should know better than to check on that with me. I know how to gather statements. I would have called you last night, but I wanted to make sure I had all my information right. So is this turning into anything?"_

"We're doing a body search of Sheriff Drake this morning."

" _A body search? Why?"_

"Kate had the idea that Sheriff Drake might have let a detail slip when he assaulted Tim. He said that Mary scratched Tim as he killed her. Kate thinks that Sheriff Drake was using something he had experienced himself and was trying to pin it on Tim."

" _Really? How likely is that?"_

"Don't know. We'll find out."

" _Okay."_

"How's Dr. Mallard doing?"

" _He's ready to leave the hospital. He just needs someplace to stay while his house gets fixed up. There's already a fundraiser of sorts going on to pay for it. ...and to pay for cleaning up Tim's place, too. It's probably past real repair, but there's some restitution trying to be made."_

"A little late."

" _Yeah, but better than nothing. I think that a few people are starting to wake up. Not everyone, but a few. And the people who were quietly sympathetic to Tim before are starting to be more overt about it. I know it's too late to fix anything, Boss, but it's something."_

"Yeah. Send everything over here."

" _Tied up with a cute little bow. You'll have it all."_

"Good." Gibbs looked at his watch. He needed to get moving. "Talk to you later, Stan."

" _Yeah, Boss."_

"Not your boss anymore, Stan."

Stan chuckled. _"Force of habit. Bye."_

Gibbs hung up and turned around. Tim was standing there. He'd clearly been listening in, but how much he'd heard, Gibbs didn't know. How did he move so quietly? Was it worth asking him how much he'd heard? Probably not.

"Coffee?" he asked, holding out a mug.

Tim took it. "Sure."

Tim drank his coffee in silence, clearly waiting for Gibbs to speak, but Gibbs didn't think it would help and there was a lot to do today. So when they were finished, he just gestured for Tim to precede him. Having Tim spend all day at the office wasn't really ideal, but Gibbs still didn't want him being alone. Not yet.

They left the house and returned to headquarters.


	45. Chapter 45

**Chapter 45**

Tim was feeling strange. He was waiting for Rachel to come and talk to him again, but his mind was buzzing with thoughts and he wasn't sure he even understood where his thoughts were taking him, but he felt too antsy to stay in this room. He left it and headed for the bullpen where Gibbs' desk was. When he got there, no one was there. He walked over to Gibbs' desk and paced a little. What was it he was wanting?

Then, it came to him, and he wasn't sure how he would manage it.

Suddenly, he noticed a set of keys sitting on Gibbs' desk. He hesitated for a few seconds. He knew he shouldn't, but he felt like he had to.

He took the keys and snuck out of the building.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Fornell walked into the Nebraska SBI headquarters and got directed to Tony's desk. He was still a little put out that this trip was required when all he had wanted at this point was information, but the curiosity was still there.

Unfortunately, no one was at the desk when he got there. He sighed in frustration. This was the moment where he started to really question what he was doing. Every stage of this had been a struggle and he hoped it was worth it.

"Hello, can I help you?"

He turned around, disappointed that the voice was not male. The woman didn't look like she belonged in this space, but he supposed that he didn't know what to expect from people who worked here.

"I'm looking for Agent DiNozzo."

"Oh. He's...out of the office right now. The whole team is, except me. They don't let me out much," she said, grinning.

"I can't see why not," Fornell replied.

"I'm Abby Sciuto. I mostly do forensics."

"Tobias Fornell."

Her eyes widened and then, she seemed almost giddy.

"Oh! You're here! I didn't know you were coming so soon! If I had known, I would have forced Gibbs to stay here to talk to you! Oh, I wish he was here, but he's doing some really important stuff and...and you'll have to wait until they get back."

"Back from where?"

"An interview for a case. It could solve the whole thing, so even though I'm really excited that you're here, I can't interrupt that."

"I understand. When will they be back?"

"I don't know. It depends on how it goes."

Fornell could see that she had other things she could say, but he respected the job being done, so he decided not to push her. Instead, he grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote his name and cell number on it. Then, he gave it to her.

"Please have them call me when they get back. I'll go and find a hotel, catch up on my sleep."

"Okay. I'm sorry that he's not here."

"I'm assuming that it's important. I can wait."

Disappointed, but understanding the situation as best he could, Fornell left the building and found a hotel. Then, he called Diane, let her know that he'd arrived safely, and fell asleep.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Are you ready for this?" Tony asked. "What if it doesn't pan out?"

"I won't be in the room," Kate said. "Gibbs will. He'll never know that I'm bothered by it."

"Who? Gibbs or Sheriff Drake?" Tony asked.

Kate smiled a little. "Either one."

Then, the door opened in the interrogation room and Sheriff Drake looked over as Gibbs walked in and sat down. Tony was ready in case Gibbs needed physical backup, although they weren't anticipating that being an issue, but Kate just wanted to see this work out like she thought it would. Gibbs was an extremely skilled investigator, she knew. He would be better at the interview, but part of Kate wanted to be in there, on hand, to see Sheriff Drake cave as she was sure he would, given the right provocation.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

"Stan, Alan is demanding to talk to you," Ned said.

"Demanding?" Stan asked.

"Yeah. He said that he's not going to talk to a peon like me."

Stan rolled his eyes. Even when he was facing serious jail time, Alan didn't seem to realize how bad his situation was.

"All right. He'd be better off talking to you, though. I'm not at all sympathetic to him."

"Neither am I," Ned said. "Anyone who would go after Ducky..."

"Yeah."

Stan took a breath and headed into the jail cell. Since his dad was currently in his own negative situation, Alan didn't have anyone to post bail for him. He was the only one in the jail right now, and they were treating him well, but he was still under arrest.

"Good morning, Alan. What can I do for you?"

"You can let me out of here, Stan," Alan said. "This is ridiculous."

"Ridiculous? Alan, you nearly killed Ducky, and you set his house on fire. You could have killed _two_ people. This isn't ridiculous. This is serious and it's high time you recognized that."

"I didn't kill anyone. I wasn't aiming for Ducky."

"Let me lay this out for you, Alan. See if it can penetrate your thick skull. You are under arrest for arson, attempted murder, and assault. Because the arson was with the intent to harm another person, that could be a life sentence if you're convicted. For attempted murder, you could be looking at another life sentence. At the least, you'll be spending at least ten years in prison if you're convicted. The assault charge is the least serious and even that could have you spending a few years in prison. This is not a game. This is serious. This is your life, Alan. You tried to take the lives of two other people and the fact that you didn't succeed isn't going to change your situation much."

"But I didn't kill anyone!"

"You don't only get punished for killing people, you know. There's a whole criminal code out there. What makes this even worse is that you did it out of some misplaced sense of offense because your father tried to kill _me_."

"He wouldn't do that!" Alan said. "I can guess that you got mixed up because of your head injury, but the freak was going to get my father arrested!"

"Your father got himself arrested, Alan. Your father didn't only try to kill me. He also attacked Tim McGee. In addition, he's under arrest for stalking."

"Stalking? Stalking who? Tim? That is ridiculous. Dad hates Tim. Always has."

"No. Not Tim. Mary."

For the first time, Alan seemed surprised.

"Why would my dad be stalking Mary? He told me to stay away from her."

"Well, he didn't listen to his own advice. Not only was he stalking her, he was taking photos of her. Hundreds of photos. We have them." Stan hesitated. He didn't want to completely tear Sheriff Drake down in front of his son, but Alan needed to see what reality was. "And your father was paying Margaret McGee for sex. He was buying her and when she ended it, he took photos of her, too. Again, we have evidence, multiple sources...including photos your dad took. You've probably thrown your life away for a man who, even if he isn't guilty of murder, is guilty of a lot of things. He already ruined his own life. Now, you seem to be trying to follow in his footsteps. If you want to have a chance to do something besides see how long you last in a prison, you might want to start reconsidering the choices you've made."

Alan seemed to be in a bit of shock. Stan stood up.

"The short answer is no, you're not getting out of here. Not anytime soon. Get comfortable with the bars."

Then, he strode out.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Gibbs sat down across from Sheriff Drake. He still had that distasteful expression on his face. He hated that he was being subject to the law, not necessarily because he was innocent. He just didn't think he should be.

"Good morning, Sheriff Drake."

"What do you want? I have the right to counsel if I'm going to be interrogated."

"There may be an interrogation, but at the moment, there's not. I'm here for a different reason."

"Oh? And what's that?"

"I have a warrant for a body search. Waist up only. All that's required is that you remove your shirt and allow a visual examination."

There it was, just for a second. If Gibbs hadn't been watching for it, he would have missed it. There was a flicker in Sheriff Drake's eye that told Gibbs he _really_ didn't want to have this search performed. In reality, from Gibbs' perspective, the search was no longer necessary, but legally, of course, that flicker wasn't enough.

"Why?"

"Well, it turns out that you shared some information with Tim McGee about Mary's murder that we need to verify."

Sheriff Drake's expression was confused. He probably didn't even remember what he'd said.

"You described Mary Fields' attempt to defend herself from her murderer with some interesting details that we'd like to check out. Please remove your shirt."

Sheriff Drake didn't move.

"You know how this works, Sheriff Drake. The warrant requires your cooperation. We can force you to remove your shirt, but the warrant will be executed, whether voluntarily or by force."

Sheriff Drake sighed and unbuttoned his shirt. He removed it and then took off the undershirt.

Gibbs raised his eyebrow.

"Those are some pretty nasty scratches on your chest, Sheriff Drake. Human fingernails can be very dirty places. If you don't get a scratch treated right away, it can become infected...as these obviously have."

There weren't a lot of them, but they were very obviously scratches from fingernails. Gibbs could see that Mary had fought back as much as she could. It just hadn't been enough. With Sheriff Drake's reluctant cooperation, he documented the scratches and then sat down again.

"Now, I have some questions for you. If you'd like your lawyer to be present, we'll wait. You have the right to counsel, as you said." He stood up. "I'll call your lawyer. You can put your shirt back on."

Gibbs walked out of the room and back to where Tony and Kate were watching.

"I called his lawyer, Boss," Tony said.

"Good. You stay out here," Gibbs said, looking at Kate, specifically.

"Of course, Gibbs." There was a pause. She was warring with herself, but then, she chanced a smile. "I was right."

Gibbs debated whether or not to give her the validation she was silently asking for.

"Yeah, you were. He's our killer."

Then, he headed back to make sure that the pictures turned out. There was no way that he was going to lose that. The best part was that there had been no physical contact, even. Visual examination had been enough. He couldn't claim anything inappropriate had occurred.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Rachel looked around the entire building before heading to Abby's lab to see if Tim was there.

"Abby!" she shouted over the music.

Abby appeared out of nowhere, grinning gleefully.

"Guess what, Rachel! Tobias Fornell showed up! Gibbs is doing the interrogation of that scum bucket, Sheriff Drake, and I had to tell him to come back later, but he's here! In Lincoln! He came! Isn't that cool?"

"Did you tell him about Tim?"

"No. Gibbs didn't want Tim to know about it until he'd figured out what this guy actually wants."

"Good. Have you seen Tim at all this morning?"

"No. I didn't think I could keep it a secret if I was talking to him. I know he came with Gibbs, though."

"He's not in the conference room, and I haven't been able to find him anywhere in the building."

Abby furrowed her brow.

"Where could he be?"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

After a few minutes, he returned to the interrogation room and found that Sheriff Drake's lawyer had arrived.

"Good morning," Gibbs said. "I assume that Sheriff Drake has shared the results of the warrant?"

"Yes, he has. May I see the warrant?"

Gibbs easily slid the warrant across the table and watched as the lawyer read it. There was nothing wrong with it.

"You have questions for my client?"

"Yes."

"Go ahead."

"Thank you. Where did those scratches come from, Sheriff Drake?"

Sheriff Drake said nothing.

"Here's the problem. You never mentioned that you went to the river while Mary was there."

"I didn't," Sheriff Drake said.

"Funny, but someone saw you going to the river, just shortly before Mary was killed."

"Who?"

"Henry Swenson. He lives right by the road that goes to the river. He saw you on the day Mary was killed, near the time she was killed. He saw you drive to the river. Why did you go to the river that evening, Sheriff Drake? The one place that you were seen was where Mary was killed. So what were you doing there?"

There was a long silence. Then, Sheriff Drake got ready to lie. He wasn't very good at it. He'd probably never had to worry about it before.

"I wasn't there. Henry is paranoid. He was always asking me to check on kids playing pranks."

"Deputy Burley doesn't seem to think so. In fact, he places you at the crime scene at the time of the murder. If you weren't there, where were you?"

"Patrolling Hazard. That's my job," Sheriff Drake said, sounding more confident.

"Only you weren't," Gibbs said. "No one saw you anywhere in town after seven-thirty, but you weren't at the station. Henry Swenson saw you going to the river at eight. You were acting strangely when you came back. You didn't answer any calls from dispatch and there were a couple."

"I was busy."

"Doing what? Killing Mary?"

"There's no evidence of that," Sheriff Drake's lawyer said. "Everything you've presented is circumstantial."

"Maybe. But it's piling up. Besides the _fact_ that you were stalking Mary, we know that she was afraid of you."

"And how do you know that?"

Gibbs pulled out Mary's diary and began to read.

" _But besides that, there's Sheriff Drake. The way he looked at me tonight gave me the chills. It was like he thought I'd betrayed him, just like Tim thought I had. He was yelling at Alan and Alan was ignoring him, but then... Then, he looked at me and got quiet. When he saw the scarf, I swear that he almost exploded. But he didn't say a word to me. Alan was done with me, too; so I just walked away, left them bickering and I came home._

 _I feel used. I feel hurt. I feel alone. And I'm scared. I'm scared of Sheriff Drake. Maybe I should say something to someone. I just don't know who. Maybe Ned would listen to me. I haven't talked to him since high school, though. I don't know._

 _I just need someone on my side."_

Gibbs looked up...and saw that it was time to start pushing. This was the moment that Kate had wanted to have. Start pushing at what Sheriff Drake saw as his rights and what he felt belonged to him.

"Mary hated you. She was disgusted by your attention. She was afraid of you. How many times did she say no? And all that time, it was Tim she cared about. She allowed your son to have sex with her just to protect Tim. She cared about Tim more than she could ever care about you. She would hug Tim and spend time with him. All you could ever do was look. Tim was the one who could touch her. She chose Tim over you...just like his mother did. In the end, Sheriff Drake, you're nothing. Tim is the one that people care about. You're just left to leer at them from a distance because that's as close as they want you to be and even that is too close. Tim is the one that..."

"They did not!" Sheriff Drake suddenly shouted, the words exploding out of him. "That slut just didn't want to work for what I gave her! I gave her money! And in the end, she spit in my face! She's lucky that all I did was take a few pictures! I could have made her life miserable."

"Sounds like you already did. Just like Mary," Gibbs said, ignoring the sputtering protests of Sheriff Drake's lawyer.

"She was a little tramp just like his mother! Always playing up and asking for the attention and then acting like she didn't want it. She even had sex with my son just to get in my face about it! She needed to be taught a lesson!"

"And so you killed her?"

"She deserved it! After everything she did to me, she didn't deserve to live!"

"And what did she do to you?" Gibbs asked.

"She chose him over me!"

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

 _Mary was standing on the bank, looking out at the river._

 _When he approached, she looked back, almost hopeful, but when she saw it was Sheriff Drake, her face fell._

" _What do you want, Sheriff Drake?"_

" _What are you doing here?" he asked, walking closer to her._

 _She took a step back._

" _It's none of your business. I don't want to talk to you and I don't have to."_

 _She started to walk by him, but he grabbed her arm._

" _Don't touch me. Let me go."_

 _He spun her around and pulled her close to him._

" _Let me go!" she said._

" _I don't think so. Not this time."_

 _He grabbed hold of the scarf around her neck. He recognized it as Tim's._

 _That was it._

" _You will not choose him over me."_

 _He pulled the scarf tight around her neck. She began to beat at him, trying to get him to let her go. She scratched at his chest, struggling, but she wasn't strong enough. He pulled it as tight as he could and jerked it. She spasmed once and then sagged in his grip. He kept the pressure until he was sure she was dead._

 _Then, he looked at the river. If the currents ran right, she'd be carried right out of town. If not, she'd still be hidden for long enough._

 _He dragged her over and threw her into the river. She sunk down just below the surface and began floating downstream. He couldn't afford to stay here watching. Very few people came here, but he didn't want to chance it._

 _He got into his car and headed along the road, making the longer loop back to Hazard._

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

There was a moment of silence as the lawyer and Gibbs both registered what Sheriff Drake had just said. His lawyer's eyes widened just a bit. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing really came out. He wasn't sure how to get around this.

Gibbs didn't give him a chance to.

"I'm sure that the courts will be very interested in hearing about that, Sheriff Drake. We will be adding murder to the list of charges and I'm sure your lawyer will be happy to explain how that will work after he hears from the DA. I have no more questions."

Gibbs stood up and headed for the door.

"Wait," Sheriff Drake said. "What is this?"

Gibbs turned back for just a moment.

"You just confessed to murder, Sheriff Drake. That, along with the fact that you had means, motive and opportunity, will make prosecution much easier, I'm sure."

Then, he walked out, ignoring Sheriff Drake's outraged protests behind him.

He walked over to where Tony and Kate were standing. Tony looked satisfied. Kate was vacillating between fury and satisfaction.

They both looked at him.

"We got him," Gibbs said, simply.


	46. Chapter 46

**Chapter 46**

Sheriff Drake was angrily declaring that he'd been forced into saying what he had, that Gibbs had manipulated him, that he had lied, that he'd make them pay.

For his part, Gibbs knew that this could be challenged, but it was a confession. The DA would work with that and there was so much evidence in addition that he couldn't imagine them _not_ pursuing the charge of murder.

Instead of letting Tony and Kate enjoy watching Sheriff Drake squirm, he pulled them out and they went back to headquarters.

In a way, getting Sheriff Drake to confess was rather anticlimactic. They had already been convinced that he was guilty. They already had him for numerous other charges.

And yet, at the same time, there was a deep abiding satisfaction in knowing that it was highly unlikely that _this_ criminal would get away with what he'd done.

And Tim wouldn't be the one paying the price for Mary's death.

It was just that, like Tim had said before, it didn't really change the fact that Mary had died, that she had been living in fear with no one to talk to, and that the town had easily put the blame on Tim.

They couldn't change the past, but they were all more determined than ever to make sure the future was better for Tim himself.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Stan hung up the phone. He felt no joy, no satisfaction at hearing Gibbs' news. It was terrible that the truth was the worst Gibbs could have suggested. Even knowing that it was the most likely, even knowing the evidence he had gathered himself, Stan was not happy to know that Sheriff Drake was a murderer and that he was, all around, a terrible person.

He had promised to keep Ducky updated, though, and he supposed that this was as good a time as any to let him know that Tim was officially in the clear for Mary's murder.

"Ned, hold down the fort. I'm going to the hospital to talk to Ducky."

"Okay. Alan's been pretty quiet."

"Good. Maybe's he finally thinking," Stan said, grimly.

Then, he left.

When he got to the hospital, he walked quickly to Ducky's room and knocked on the door.

"Come in!"

He stepped inside.

"Hey, Ducky."

Ducky was still in his hospital bed, but he was looking much better than he had been, and right now, he was looking at Stan rather quizzically.

"Are you here officially?"

"No. Not really."

"You seem rather glum, Stan."

"I am."

"About what, if I might ask you?"

"Sheriff Drake is officially being charged with murder."

Ducky sat up and his eyes widened.

"What?"

"Yeah."

"You're not happy about it. Do you think it's not true?"

"I'm not happy about it, but not because I think it's not true."

"Ah, then, it's because it _is_ true."

"Yeah." Stan sat down and sighed. "I never liked Alan, you know. He was fine as a boss, but not a very nice person. I would never have wanted to hang out with him, but I never had any reason to think that it went beyond that. Now..."

"Does that mean that Timothy is officially in the clear?"

"Yeah. That's the only good thing about this whole mess. Tim couldn't have done it. Not only because of these charges, but because he literally could not have done it. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad to find the truth and I don't want Tim to be the one to suffer for it. I guess I was hoping that it would turn out to be a random passerby. I can't change what happened, but then, it wouldn't be that I misread someone so badly."

"I understand that you're not happy to find out something so negative, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't relieved that the truth has come out and vindicated Timothy. Once I'm freed from this room, I think I'll go to Lincoln and visit him to see how he's doing."

"When will that be?"

"Today, I hope, although my home isn't yet repaired from what I understand."

"No, it's not, but they are rushing it. When you do get out, you have a couple of options of where to stay."

"A couple? Who's offered?"

"Well, I think most people would. I have a spare room you could use for as long as you need to. But Henry Swenson has offered."

"Henry has?" Ducky asked, incredulously. "That is a very big surprise. He doesn't let anyone step _inside_ his house, let alone invite people to stay."

"Well, he already shocked me once, so the additional surprise wasn't too much."

"As kind as the invitation is, I think I would prefer to stay with you."

"My pleasure."

"Good. Now, I just need to get released by my doctor. Perhaps things can start looking up."

"Yeah, maybe," Stan said. "But I think it might be just a little bit too soon for things to look up."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

When Gibbs got back to his desk, he instantly knew something was wrong, but he wasn't sure what it was. He was staring at his desk, wondering what it was that was out of place, when Rachel came in.

"Gibbs, where is Tim?" she asked.

"What do you mean, Rachel?" Kate asked. "Tim came with Gibbs. He stayed here while we went to interrogate Sheriff Drake. He has to be here."

"He's not in the building," Rachel said. "Abby and I have looked from top to bottom. We even checked around the grounds. He's not here."

Gibbs looked at his desk again, and thought back to when he had first arrived.

"My keys are missing," he said.

He ran out of the building to the parking lot and saw that his car was gone. Tony and Kate had followed behind him.

"He took my car."

"But where would he go?" Tony asked. "He doesn't have anywhere to go, does he?"

"Yes, he does," Gibbs said. "He has one place."

"Why would he go back to Hazard, though?" Kate asked. "He said himself that he hated it and he had nothing in it he wanted to see again."

"Because it's what he knows?" Tony guessed.

Gibbs thought back to the night before. Tim's mind had been on his mother, but Gibbs' natural reaction would be to think that Tim was glad to be away from the complications she had presented for him.

And yet, at the same time, it was as if Tim was looking for a reason to think better of her than he did when he let himself. And besides, really, where else could he possibly have to go? Gibbs wasn't even sure that Tim remembered the name of the town he had lived in before. Certainly, he'd never spoken it.

In reality, Hazard was the only logical option, even if the reason for it wasn't quite clear.

Rachel spoke his thoughts.

"Hazard is the only place he could really be," she said. "I don't know what his purpose would be, necessarily, but that's where we should look."

"I'll call Stan," Gibbs said.

"Good idea. He can start looking, but we should get there to bring him back out of there," Rachel said. "Tim might hate Hazard, but getting him out is very difficult to do and he'll have a hard time leaving on his own." She looked at Gibbs. "And you should be one of the people going, Gibbs. You've presented yourself as an alternative to what he's had. You need to keep that up so that he knows you mean it."

"Gotta get my car back," Gibbs said.

Rachel smiled. "I'll give you a ride."

Gibbs smiled a little and then looked at Kate and Tony.

"We'll get everything recorded and logged," Tony said. "You coming back tonight?"

"That's the plan," Gibbs said.

"Let us know," Kate said.

Gibbs nodded and then, he and Rachel left to go back to Hazard.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim stopped the car. He did feel kind of bad about taking Gibbs' car. He knew that Gibbs would be angry at him. Maybe this would be the straw the broke the camel's back and he'd give up. In a way, it would be a relief. There was no struggle if no one cared.

He got out and took a few steps.

Then, he stopped and stared.

The Hazard cemetery gates stood in front of him. They were never closed. People didn't care enough to worry about someone going in at night.

In this case, though, it wasn't nighttime. It was the afternoon, and the sun was shining brightly.

It didn't make him want to step into the cemetery any more than he had before.

Finally, he took a deep breath and walked into the haven of death.

Tim hated the cemetery. He hated death. It was such a terrible thing, horrifying, at least as he had experienced it.

Still, he was being almost dragged forward by some force.

He walked by the graves, trying not to look at them, trying not to imagine what had brought these people here.

Then, he got to a grave he had only been to one other time in his life.

He read the name.

 _Margaret McGee_

The gravestone was very simple. Tim had no idea whether or not he had chosen it. That whole period had been a blur to him.

He stood, staring at the grave for a while. Then, he sat down beside it. He sat there for a while. Then, he scooted close to it and leaned against it, resting the back of his head on the cold stone. He stared up at the sky and then closed his eyes.

"Everything that's gone wrong in my life is in my head. It's all there," he said softly. "But I don't know how to let it out. I hid it for so long that it seems stuck inside me. Everything you did, everything I saw. It's all there in my head. I can't get rid of it. You never touched me, but I feel like I've been eaten alive by what I saw you do."

Tim felt his throat tighten and he sniffled, trying to hold the emotion inside. He took loud trembling breaths.

"Even though you're dead, you're there, hovering out of sight, leaving me terrified. I was afraid to leave and I was afraid of staying. I hovered in middle of terror for most of my life. I pushed it all away until I didn't even know what I was afraid of. What do I do, now? I have nothing, nothing to live for. I never did, but I just lived anyway...but I've seen that there's more. I know what I've missed. I don't see how I can get it because you're always there."

He felt the oppression of Hazard, of the death all around him.

"It's so hard to hide the scars inside me. It's so hard to see you looking out of my eyes. It must be hard for other people to look at me, too. Maybe they can see you looking out of my eyes, too."

He didn't know how long he sat there, but he didn't move.

"I never could tell you what I knew, and there was no one else to tell. What do I do? I don't know why I'm asking you. You never helped me, not once in my life. Everything that I experienced was made worse, whether you knew it or not. I don't know how much is Dad's fault. I still have that hatred that you gave me. This is with me forever."

He took a long deep breath.

"I hate this place. I hate everything about it. But it has my whole life in it. Because it's where you are. And all I have is nothing."

There was another long silence as he sat on his mother's grave.

Then, the silence was broken.

"You may not have anything here, but you can have something away from here."

Tim sat up quickly and opened his eyes. He found himself staring at Stan Burley who was crouching in front of him.

"How long have you been here?" he asked.

"Long enough."

"Why?"

"Why are _you_ here?" Stan asked.

"I don't know," Tim said.

"I'm here because Gibbs called me and asked me to look for you. You left them pretty worried back there in Lincoln."

Tim couldn't think of many times when he'd had any kind of conversation with Stan. He wasn't sure what to expect from him. He didn't say anything.

"And since you're here, I'm also here to say thank you."

"What for?"

Stan smiled. "For saving my life. I would have died in that shed, and I really didn't want to. I'm not ready for that yet. You stopped it from happening, and I'm grateful for it."

Tim shrugged.

"I didn't want anyone else to burn."

"Yeah. And I wanted to apologize. It's a day late and a dollar short, but while I don't think I ever treated you badly, I didn't think about you like I should have. You kept yourself isolated and I let it be that way. I let the way others thought of you be the way I thought of you, too. I just didn't take the time to find out for myself, and that was wrong. I'm sorry."

"I don't know what to say," Tim said. "I've never had anyone apologize to me before. At least, not for treating me wrong."

"Well, you don't have to say anything. I just want you to know that I'm sorry."

"Okay."

"And Gibbs will be here soon."

"I guess he wants his car back."

"Yeah, I'm sure he does, but I don't think that's why he's coming."

"Oh."

"So do you want to wait here or do you want to leave?"

Tim looked around.

"I don't even know why I came here," he said. "I don't like it here. I hate it."

"I don't know why you did, either."

Stan stood up.

"So why stay?"

He held out his hand. Tim looked at it and then at Stan. Then, he took a breath and let Stan help him up.

"Come on. You can visit Ducky. He's crashing at my place until his house is repaired."

Tim paused and looked back at his mother's grave. He'd lived so long with her hovering in the back of his mind, always there, always that frightening shadowy figure, even though she'd never hurt him or threatened him in any way.

"Come on, Tim. No reason to stay here. The dead are going to stay dead. Focus on living, instead."

One last look and then Tim followed Stan out of the cemetery.


	47. Chapter 47

**Chapter 47**

Gibbs hung up.

"Stan found Tim at the cemetery," he said.

"His mother's grave?"

"Yeah. Said that he didn't know why he'd even come."

Rachel nodded and kept her eyes on the road.

"After what he had to share yesterday, I'm not surprised that he reacted like this. I wouldn't have been able to predict it, but it makes sense that he'd go back to his mother."

"To the person who scares him?"

"Scares him, raised him, destroyed him, supported him. I would guess that Margaret McGee never had any idea that her son had witnessed the murder. She was probably genuinely confused by his actions and didn't understand any veiled messages Tim might have given her. Remember that she thought he was home in bed."

"And if she _had_ known?"

"I don't know," Rachel said. "I haven't made any detailed study of Margaret McGee, but it's entirely possible that she would have simply taken Tim and run. I doubt she would have killed him, if that's what you're wondering. She was angry at her ex-husband, not at Tim. Tim was young enough that she could have told him any story and he would have believed it. It would have made Tim's life easier."

"Better?" Gibbs asked.

"No, not really. A life built on a lie isn't better, but it would have been easier simply because Tim wouldn't have felt like he was hiding something so important from the world. The one person he should be able to lean on without question would have known. Witnessing the murder would have messed Tim up no matter what, but the addition of having to hide it and keep it a secret when he couldn't manage it himself was what really broke him."

"Is he still broken?"

"Probably. To what degree, I don't know. He's already shown incredible resilience by being able to cobble some semblance of sanity out of that chaos. I really think he can still be repaired, given time..." Rachel glanced over at him. "...and given the determination of people to keep up their support."

"Wasn't planning on leaving."

"I know that, but Tim doesn't. Not yet. That's why you need to be here."

Gibbs nodded and they were silent until they got to Stan's place. When they pulled up, Gibbs got out and headed toward the house, but he kept quiet when he heard voices.

"And my parents really didn't understand why I would give up running the family business when they've been so successful. I tried a lot of things, but being here has been the most right anything has ever felt. Everyone needs to find that space where they belong. I think this is my place."

"Indeed. I agree. While I wouldn't have wanted to be here in my youth, it has become a place that I fit in my old age. That's what you need to find, Timothy. Hazard is not the place for you, but you'll find where you fit in."

Gibbs knocked and then stepped inside. Tim was sitting silently on a chair. Ducky was relaxing on the couch and Stan was just standing up.

"Hey, Boss!" Stan said. "Welcome back."

"Not moving in, Stan," Gibbs said.

"I didn't expect you to."

Gibbs looked past Stan to Tim and raised an eyebrow. Tim looked down, but then, he took a breath and stood up. He walked to Gibbs and held out the keys. He didn't say anything. He just stood and looked him, clearly expecting some kind of punishment. Gibbs was also surprised to realize that Tim was just a little bit taller than he was when he actually stood up straight.

"Why did you take my car?" Gibbs asked.

"I felt like I needed to come here. I didn't...I don't know why, really."

"If you need to go somewhere, at least tell someone first."

Tim was clearly surprised at the lack of censure. He had known it was wrong, but Gibbs also believed him when he said he felt like he needed to. Still, there did need to be something said about what he'd done.

"And you shouldn't have taken my car."

"I know."

"Good. Don't do it again," Gibbs said. "You ready to go?"

"Go? Where?"

"Back to Lincoln...unless you have somewhere else you'd rather be."

"But not here?" Tim asked.

"Do you really want to _be_ here?" Gibbs asked.

"No."

"Then, not here."

Tim suddenly looked back at Ducky who smiled.

"Don't worry about me, Timothy. I'm well on my way to recovery and once I'm back in my home and settled, I'd like to come and visit you, if you don't mind."

"I...don't mind," Tim said.

"Excellent. Then, enjoy your time in Lincoln as much as you can."

Stan walked over and held out his hand.

"Good luck, Tim."

Tim looked at his hand for a long moment. Then, he hesitantly shook it.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome. And thanks again."

Then, they left Stan's house and Tim looked surprised to see Rachel. Gibbs noticed that Tim was also a little wary. Rachel just smiled.

"I was giving Gibbs a ride, Tim. Don't worry."

Tim nodded.

"I'll take it easy today and you can tell me what you're ready for, tomorrow."

She put her car in gear and drove away. Tim seemed almost meek as he followed Gibbs to his car. Gibbs got in and drove away from Stan's house, but he wanted to make a couple of stops, first. He didn't know all the details of what Tim had seen. He didn't know all that Tim had felt, but he did know that Tim was still struggling to deal with it, and that was something he could try to help with.

He drove Tim to his house. There was no escaping the fact that it had been ruined. It couldn't be rebuilt. Besides, the house had been a wreck before the fire from what Gibbs had understood. But Tim could see what was happening to it now.

Tim didn't bother asking why they were there. He just got out of the car and walked over to the house.

"What are they doing?"

"Making the property as good as it can be."

"And then what? The house can't get better. It's a piece of junk."

"And then, you can sell the property and get rid of any connection to this place."

Tim swallowed and stared at the house.

"No one will want to buy this place."

"Not the house, but maybe the property."

"Yeah, right."

"Anything you want from here?"

Tim stared at the house for a long time. Gibbs didn't rush him. He wanted to let Tim decide what it was that he wanted.

"I want to forget it ever existed," Tim said. Then, he turned away from it and walked back to the car.

Gibbs followed him. There was one more stop he wanted to make, the one place that had some positive memories for him, even if it mixed with the negative that ruled so much of Tim's life.

Back to the river one last time.

He stopped the car, and again, Tim didn't ask why they were there. He just got out and walked down to the bank. He sat down and looked at the river.

Gibbs walked down to sit beside him. Gibbs said nothing, waiting for Tim to speak...or not to speak.

"No one ever cared about me, except Mary. No one cared how I felt, except Mary. She kept trying to help me without ever expecting anything." He took a deep breath. "No one cared about me...until Mary died. Then, everyone wanted to know why I was with Mary, what I felt about her, who she was to me. But what she was to me doesn't have words, not really. I can explain why she mattered so much to me, but, really, it doesn't explain how I felt about her. But now, it doesn't matter, anyway. She's dead. Dead and gone forever."

"It does matter," Gibbs said. "Just because she's dead, it doesn't change what she did for you."

"But she's still dead."

"Yeah."

"I don't want her to be dead," Tim said, his voice getting softer.

"Doesn't change it."

"I know. Nothing can make bad things good."

"But that doesn't mean things can't get better."

Tim didn't respond to that. Gibbs hesitated and then put his hand on Tim's shoulder. Tim tensed for a moment and then relaxed.

"It'll be all right," Gibbs said.

"Will it?"

"Eventually."

Another long pause.

"We've arrested Sheriff Drake for Mary's murder."

Tim turned to him, finally making eye contact.

"What?"

"We're charging him for Mary's murder."

"How?"

"Because of you."

Tim's brow furrowed.

"You gave us some details about what he said to you and it turned out that he was really talking about himself. He basically confessed."

"But it won't bring Mary back."

"No, but it will make sure that the one who killed her doesn't get away with it. That's important."

"Did you believe me?"

"That you didn't do it?"

"Yeah."

"Yes."

"The whole time?"

"No, but I didn't ever assume you were guilty. You ready to go?"

"What now?"

"Now?"

"Yeah."

"Now, you start making a new life. A better one."

"How?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do," Gibbs said. "You said that you talked to Mary about what you'd do if you could leave Hazard. You can."

"But Mary can't."

"Mary wouldn't want you to let that stop you."

"How do you know? You never met her."

"Because you said that that Mary cared about you. If she really did, then, she'd want you to be happy, no matter what. So you think about what you want. Then, you tell me, and if we can do it, it'll happen."

"Why?"

Gibbs smiled and stood up. He helped Tim stand and they walked back to the car.

"Because we care, too."

Then, it was back into the car and they left Hazard behind.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Fornell parked and hurried into the building now that he could finally figure out what was going on with this task he'd taken on. He was admitted to the building and directed to the main office. When he got there, all he saw was a man about his age, sitting at a desk, apparently waiting.

"You're not Agent DiNozzo," Fornell said.

The man looked up at him.

"Nope."

"Who are you?"

The man smiled slightly. "Who are _you_? I work here. You're the stranger."

"Tobias Fornell."

The expression changed, just a little, and the man stood up.

"I'm Agent Gibbs. You're here about Tim McGee."

"And his mother, Margaret McGee."

Gibbs shook his head. "No. You're only here about Tim. Margaret McGee is dead and has been for nearly five years."

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Fornell asked. "It would have been easy to say, even over the phone. I didn't know the woman. It wouldn't have been a shock."

"Because we needed you here to find out if you'll be allowed to meet Tim McGee. Come with me."

"Allowed? Since when does an agent with the Nebraska SBI dictate who gets to meet whom?"

"It's not about the SBI. It's about the fact that we know Tim and you don't, and we don't know you, either. Come with me and we'll talk."

Gibbs walked away, apparently confident that Fornell would follow. He wasn't happy about it, but he didn't see that he had much choice. He walked behind Gibbs to a smaller room, perhaps a conference room, and sat down across from him.

"Why are you looking for Tim McGee?" Gibbs asked.

"Because his grandmother asked me to."

"For what purpose?"

"She told me that she felt guilty about how she had abandoned Margaret and Tim after John's death, that she had let her son's feelings dictate how she approached the situation. She knew that there was no evidence of murder, but she still treated them as if they were responsible. Then, she left completely, not just Tim and Margaret, but her sons as well. She separated herself from her family as completely as she could. When she found out she had cancer, she knew there wasn't enough time to do everything. She talked to her sons, patched things up a little bit and asked me to find Tim and Margaret, if I could."

"And do what?"

"Louisa, that's Tim McGee's grandmother, wanted to leave him some money. She knew it couldn't make up for a lifetime of abandonment, but she felt that he deserved it."

"Is that all?"

"Well, as far as fulfilling Louisa's last wish, yes."

"No other interest?" Gibbs asked.

"Look, my life is my life, and it's no concern of yours."

Gibbs smiled grimly. "I don't care about _your_ life. I care about Tim's life."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that Tim McGee has had a miserable life, beginning with when his father abandoned him, his mother became a prostitute and Tim got to see it."

Fornell winced. He would never have guessed that.

"That's only the beginning. After that, Tim witnessed his mother, Margaret McGee, murder his father and his father's girlfriend before setting the fire that destroyed the house and their bodies. He was seven years old. He was thoroughly traumatized by that, but his mother never knew that he'd seen it and Tim didn't know how to tell anyone. His mother took Tim from the place he knew and settled in Hazard where she acted as the personal prostitute to a police officer there for about six months. After that, she ended it and worked in the post office, barely making enough to get by for the rest of her life. Tim stayed with her because he was afraid she would kill him if he tried to leave. Everyone hated and feared him because he was so disturbed and they treated him badly. His mother died and Tim discovered her body. He had one friend in the town, and she was murdered by the Sheriff just about two weeks ago. Except for us and the man who runs the mortuary in town, he literally has no one and nothing. People in the town blamed him for his friend's murder and they burned his house down."

Fornell wasn't hearing anything that he hadn't seen in cases before, but somehow, hearing it all laid out, having happened to one man, and that man being a person he had some kind of connection to, no matter how tenuous, made the situation that much worse.

"That's why I'm asking. Tim is just barely starting to think that people might be able to care about him, that maybe life isn't just completely terrible. He can't take someone waltzing into his life and then abandoning him again. So if all you're doing is giving him money, we'll make sure he gets it and you can go back to your life. If you want something more than that, then, you'll have to promise me that you're not going to give up because it's hard. ...and it will be hard."

"Would he even _want_ something like that?"

"I don't know, but I'm not going to ask him if you're not determined. Tim didn't commit murder, but his mother did and _he_ has been paying the price most of his life. He's not going to pay for it any more, if I can stop it."

Fornell considered. There was curiosity. He knew that was a lot of his motivation, but it wasn't _just_ that. Diane had really wanted to do something for the people connected to her beloved stepmother. This might be more than they were expecting, but if Tim wanted another person to rely on, that was something they could give...even if it would be hard. Still, Diane should have the chance to weigh in before he gave an answer, even though he was pretty sure he knew what she'd want.

"I need to call my wife, first."

Gibbs nodded and stood.

"I'll be out in the hall."

Fornell nodded and dialed.

" _Have you met him, yet, Tobias?"_

"Not yet. I need to talk to you about a few things first."


	48. Chapter 48

**Chapter 48**

Gibbs waited for Fornell. If he was reading him right, he figured that it wouldn't take long. He wouldn't want to delay after all the delays he'd had up to this point.

Sure enough, after only five minutes, Fornell was out of the room.

"All right. We're ready for whatever might be involved...if Tim is interested."

Gibbs nodded.

"This way."

He led Fornell to Abby's lab where Tony had taken Tim when they got back. While Abby wasn't always the most understanding or tactful, she was very accepting of Tim's ways and he had managed to relax a bit in her company, something that was always a plus, no matter how brief. When they got there, Gibbs put up his hand to stop Fornell.

"That's him."

Fornell looked through the window into the lab. Gibbs wondered what he thought. Abby was talking at her usual pace, although she wasn't being nearly as physical with Tim as she would have been with Tony or Kate. He was glad that she had taken the warnings to heart.

"You'd think he was just quiet," Fornell said. "Except in his eyes."

Gibbs nodded.

"His eyes say a lot, even if you don't understand the language."

Another nod.

"I'm ready to meet him."

"Okay."

Gibbs walked into the lab. Abby turned, first. She looked excited when she saw Fornell standing there, but when Tim turned and saw a stranger, he looked very wary. Not surprising, but Gibbs hoped that Fornell wouldn't take it wrong.

"Tim, this is Tobias Fornell. He's been looking for you."

"Looking for me? Why?" Tim asked, still looking wary.

"My wife was the stepdaughter of your grandmother. Your grandmother asked us to find you. She died of cancer a few weeks ago, but she wanted you to have contact with family."

"What family?" Tim asked.

"Your father's mother," Gibbs said.

Tim swallowed nervously. He looked at Gibbs and then at Fornell. Then, back to Gibbs again.

"I was in my room," he whispered.

"That's not why he was looking for you, Tim," Gibbs said, quickly. A meltdown right now would _not_ help the situation.

"Louisa, your grandma, wanted to leave you some money, and Diane, my wife, was hoping that you'd want to be a part of her family."

Tim's brow furrowed. Gibbs decided that they needed some privacy. He gestured and led them away from Abby's eager gaze and back to the conference room. He gestured for them to go inside. He was about to leave them to it, but he met Tim's gaze and, even though he didn't say a word, Gibbs could see that Tim was terrified of being alone with a complete stranger. No big surprise, of course, but Gibbs _had_ wanted to give them some privacy. Still, Tim clearly didn't want that. So Gibbs followed them in and sat down to the side, not in direct view, but present.

Fornell clearly twigged to the fact that Tim was unsure at best. He sat down across the table from Tim, giving Tim some personal space.

"I don't know you, and I don't know if you're even interested in what we're offering you. You don't have to accept it if you don't want to. As far as I'm concerned, there's no rush. If you want to wait until you're ready, that's fine. We'll wait. If you want to say that it'll never happen, you certainly have the right to. If that's the case, I'll just make sure that you get the money Louisa left you, and leave it at that. ...but if you want more, we're offering more. We're not perfect. Technically, we're not even related to you because Diane was only Louisa's stepdaughter."

Tim's eyes widened in surprise as that registered. While Fornell might be considering that a negative, Gibbs thought that, given Tim's experiences, someone wholly unrelated to him might end up being a better option.

"But Diane loved Louisa, and she would love to have some connection to anyone in Louisa's family. We've met your surviving uncles as well. We're always happy to have more family. But it's up to you. What do _you_ want?"

"I...I don't know," Tim said. "I never even...thought that I had family, not after..." He stopped and didn't complete the thought. "I really don't know."

"That's all right," Fornell said, smiling a little. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. Then, he wrote on it. "Here's my business card, and I've put our personal numbers on there as well. If you want to, you can try us out. We're far from perfect, but we do our best. Our daughters would love to meet you. Our older daughter, Sarah, is imagining you as an older brother since she doesn't have one."

"I don't know if I'd be a good brother," Tim said. "I'm too screwed up."

"The option's there, and our door is always open."

"Really?"

"Really."

Gibbs found that he was approving of this FBI agent. He was being up front and sincere, but he wasn't being sappy about it. With how emotionally-charged this situation could be on Tim's side, it was probably best that Fornell had come on his own.

"I'm here until tomorrow, and then, I've got to get back to DC. Can't take too much time off and it's a long drive, but it was nice to meet you, Tim."

"You drove all the way out here? Just to meet me?"

"Yeah. Crazy, huh?" Fornell said. "Do you need to escort me out or will you trust me to get out on my own, Agent Gibbs?"

Gibbs stood up and gestured for Fornell to precede him. As soon as they were out in the hall, Fornell exhaled loudly.

"You weren't kidding when you said he was messed up, but I meant what I said, Agent Gibbs. I'm serious about helping him out if he wants it. I can see he needs help, but whatever you need from us, whatever _he_ wants from us, you've got it, and maybe, somewhere down the line, he'll be okay with meeting the family. We won't push, but we'll be there."

"Good. He'll need time to think about it, and he'll need time to adjust to it, but he'll get there."

"Okay. Now, about the money. Diane is the executor, and the will was very simple. Louisa didn't have a lot, but what she had, she wanted divided among her surviving family. Tim stands in for John, and the other two have already received their money. The check will be ready soon. Where should we have it sent?"

Tim had no banking experience that Gibbs could see, but it was still his money.

"He's staying with me," Gibbs said. He wrote out his address and handed it over.

"With you? Isn't that a conflict of interest?"

"He's a victim, not a suspect," Gibbs said.

"Uh-huh," Fornell said skeptically. "I figured you guys for cowboys out here. Doesn't surprise me at all. We'd like to be kept in the loop, if possible."

"Sure."

"Good. Then, it was nice to meet you, and I'll get out of your hair. I'll be leaving tomorrow, but not until late in the morning, if he decides he wants to talk."

"Okay."

"All right." Fornell nodded to Gibbs and then, he left.

Gibbs went back to the conference room. Tim was still sitting in the same place.

"Well?" Gibbs asked.

"I don't know."

"Don't have to decide now."

"Good. Because I can't."

"That's fine."

"If she felt bad, why didn't she do anything about it before?"

"I don't know. I didn't know her. Did you?"

Tim's brow furrowed.

"I don't...remember anyone except my parents."

He was quiet again.

"No, I don't remember any relatives."

"Well, now, you have some options. No rush to decide."

The furrow remained.

Gibbs raised an eyebrow.

"Are you really not mad at me for taking your car?"

"No."

"Why not? I don't even have a driver's license."

That was something Gibbs hadn't considered, although he probably should have. If Tim was struggling to earn enough money to east, why would he spend some of that on a driver's license?

"I guess you'll have to get one."

"That's all?"

"What is it you're expecting me to say?"

"I took your car. I didn't ask if I could. I just did it. I drove illegally, and I don't believe you when you say you're not mad at me."

"You tell me why you did it, and I'll tell you why I'm not mad."

"I felt like I needed to."

"Yeah. Why?"

Tim was silent.

"You have plenty of time to figure yourself out," Gibbs said. "Don't waste the chance you have."

Then, he left. Rachel was waiting in the hallway and she slipped in behind him. Hopefully, today would be an easier day for Tim than yesterday, although Gibbs had no doubt that Rachel would be careful about what Tim could tolerate.

All in all, this was turning into a successful day, even with the added complication of Tim running off to Hazard. They had brought him out again, and maybe a little better for it.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Tim was surprised at how simple his conversation with Rachel had been. She hadn't asked him anything more about his family. She had been asking him questions, but they weren't the painful kind she had pushed on him the day before. It was more about why he had gone back to Hazard, what did he want out of life. They were still questions he had a hard time answering, but it was more because he wasn't sure of the answers than because the answers themselves were painful.

"Tim?"

"What now?" Tim asked.

"Now, you keep going. It will get easier for you. It really will."

"When?"

"With time."

"You've said that before."

Rachel smiled. "That's because it's still true. Tim, this is your chance to escape. You keep thinking that misery is all you can expect, but that's not the case. Gibbs is willing to help you. You've met someone who wants to get to know you. You have the world opening up to you. Take that in. Accept it."

Tim didn't know how to respond. Thankfully, Rachel didn't seem to be expecting an answer. She just accepted his silence.

When she stood to go, Tim looked at her.

"I want to go outside," he said.

"I'm sure it's hard staying indoors all the time," she said. "Come on. I'll just tell the others where you are."

Tim followed her out of the building. She gestured to a shaded bench just across the street.

"Don't go too far since you don't know your way around here, yet, but you can stay out here for as long as you want to."

"Thanks."

Tim walked to the bench she had indicated and he sat down. So much had happened in the last few weeks. His life was astronomically different from how it had been before. He was in a strange, unfamiliar place, with unfamiliar people who kept insisting that he mattered to them. Mary was dead. Sheriff Drake had been arrested. He was finding that there were people who actually cared about the truth. He had confessed to what he knew about his family. Quickly, he shifted his mind away from that thought. It was too hard to think about it much.

What now?

He had asked that question of these people, but the answer seemed to depend on him. Tim wasn't used to have an option. He didn't like thinking that he had choices, but they kept telling him that he had them, that they mattered.

Gibbs had asked him what he wanted. His temptation was to ask for what he knew he couldn't possibly have because then he knew that he'd be disappointed. There would be no hoping for it.

...but then, he thought about what Gibbs had told him, that Mary wouldn't want him to give up this chance, that she'd want him to be happy. Tim could agree with that. She would. She'd want to be happy, too, but she'd want _him_ to be happy.

He didn't know if he could really _be_ happy, but it didn't take any thought to know what _might_ make him happy. Still, could he really say that?

He sat on the bench for another couple of hours and then he heard someone behind him. He tensed, unsure of who it might be.

"Tim, are you ready to go?"

He turned around.

"I want to go to college," he blurted out.

Gibbs was standing there, and Tim thought he might even look a little surprised.

"That's what I want," he said. "I always wanted to go to college, but I never could. I couldn't leave. You asked me what I wanted to do. That's it. Can I?"

Gibbs smiled.

"Yes."

"I can't afford it," Tim said, instantly, waiting for the rejection.

"Actually, you can."

"I don't have any money, Agent Gibbs."

"Not yet, but you will. Tobias Fornell was here to make sure you would get the money you're supposed to inherit. I don't know how much it is, but it will be enough, since the rest of us will help, too."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that Director Morrow is going to set up a fund to help raise some money for you. Until you can get on your own two feet."

"What does that mean?" Tim asked, unable to fathom what he was being told.

"It means that you can go to college, that you can do the things you wanted to do."

"Here?"

"If you want."

Tim couldn't imagine going somewhere with only complete strangers, so he nodded vaguely.

"Then, we'll get started. You don't need to worry about the money. Just worry about yourself for a little while."

"How long?"

"Until you're ready. You'll know when. Let's go."

Tim nodded and went back to Gibbs' home, ready to start that long process of healing.


	49. Chapter 49

**Chapter 49**

Sheriff Drake was formally charged with second degree murder, along with felony stalking charges, attempted murder of a police officer, and assault. Alan Drake, Jr., was charged with arson in the first degree because there were people in the house at the time of the fire. He elected to plead guilty in exchange for leniency. The trials would take time, but while he could be called as a witness, Tim's part in the investigation was basically over, and Gibbs was determined to keep him out of the limelight as much as possible. Tim needed to heal and that wouldn't happen without a lot of time and a lot of help. And being the center of a lot of media attention wouldn't help him, not now, maybe not ever.

Stan reluctantly took over as sheriff of Hazard until an election could be called. When that happened, he was elected, even though he hadn't run for the office. No one else wanted the job and he was already doing it. So the new sheriff of Hazard was Stan Burley. No one ever did admit to the fire that had been started at the McGee home, but when no buyers were forthcoming for the property, there was another fundraiser. Enough was donated that the property was purchased and the space was turned into a small park with a plaque (paid for by Ducky) explaining the significance. No one would soon forget what had happened in the town. Stan was glad of that. Eventually, things would have to move on, but hopefully with the lesson soundly learned.

In the end, Tim moved into Gibbs' home on a more or less permanent basis. It took months for him to be able to go into the spare bedroom, but Gibbs didn't rush him and eventually, he started sleeping there instead of out on the couch. However, occasionally, Gibbs would come downstairs in the morning to find Tim sleeping on the couch instead of in the bedroom. He accepted it as part of the requirements of having Tim around. Tony, Kate and Abby still spent time with him when they could. They felt it was important for Tim to see that they had an interest beyond his involvement in the case, but also, as he spent more time away from Hazard, he began to open up a little more and that helped make him someone they genuinely _did_ want to spend time with.

Tim also continued to meet with Rachel, although not at the SBI headquarters. She did it _pro bono_ , even if Tim was uncomfortable about that. It took many weeks of therapy before she felt he was ready to expand his horizons.

The first thing he did was meet Tobias Fornell's family. They came to Lincoln at Gibbs' request because they were still trying to ease Tim into the larger world at a slow pace. The Fornells were more than happy to do so.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

There was a knock on the door. Tim looked up at it and tensed.

Gibbs just smiled a little. He'd known that Tim wouldn't be relaxed about meeting these people, but he was glad that Fornell seemed to be following through on what he'd said on his first visit. He walked over and answered the door.

"Agent Gibbs."

"Agent Fornell."

There was a sigh.

"Tobias, we don't have to be so formal. We're not here for your work. We're here to meet Louisa's grandson. I'm Diane Fornell."

"Jethro Gibbs."

"These are our daughters. Sarah is the older one and Emily is the younger."

Gibbs couldn't help but notice how different the two girls looked. In fact, he'd be surprised if Sarah wasn't adopted, but it wasn't his place to ask.

"Is he here?" Sarah asked, sounding eager.

Gibbs stood back from the door to let them in. He looked back to where Tim was standing, looking a bit anxious, actually.

"Remember, honey, don't overwhelm him. We're only meeting him for the first time."

"I know. I know," Sarah said.

She walked over to Tim quickly and stuck out her hand.

"Hi! You must be Tim! I'm Sarah!"

Tim swallowed nervously and shook her hand.

"I'm Tim," he said, his voice soft, probably to cover any shaking.

"Nice to see you again, Tim," Fornell said. "This is my wife, Diane."

Diane walked over to Tim. She looked like she wanted to hug him, but Gibbs was glad that she refrained. Tim was still very wary around women and he was uncomfortable with most physical contact.

"Hello, Tim. I'm glad to meet you, finally."

"You are?" Tim asked. "Are you sure about that?"

"Positive. We don't want to push you too much, but I hope you'll let us keep in contact with you."

"If...that's what you want," Tim said.

Gibbs wondered if Diane expected Tim to ask about his grandmother, but he would be surprised if Tim pushed to know _anything_ about his father's family. Certainly, not now, but not really ever. There was so much pain tied up in his family that it would be surprising to Gibbs if Tim wanted more. But maybe he could make some genuine contact with these people. Sarah, in particular, seemed interested in knowing Tim better. In fact, she sat as close to Tim as she could during the entire visit. Interestingly, Tim seemed to respond to her as well. Gibbs couldn't help wondering how much of it was the mass of dark, curly hair that Sarah had, so similar to the photos of Mary.

After a little while, the visit was over. Tim had reached the limits of his ability to converse with them. But it was a start and it would get better over time.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

A few months later, Tim was ready to try out going to college. He was old to be just starting out, and that made him nervous, but he'd not only been encouraged by all the people around him but had also been admitted. He'd been accepted into a university. Sure, it was the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, not an Ivy League like, say, Harvard, but it was a university and it was still a good one, too!

When the semester began, Tim attended, but he brought no attention onto himself. He sat in the back of the room and kept his head down. If anyone recognized him from the news articles about the trial, they didn't say anything to him. He was so clearly shy and withdrawn that even the few who tried to say hi didn't persist much beyond the first week. He excelled in his classes, from generals to his first courses in computer science. He was just still so worried about talking to people.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Delilah grimaced as the door closed. She rolled her wheelchair closer, hoping that she could manage it. Usually, the door was propped open for her, but not today.

"I'll get it for you."

The voice was so soft and timid that she almost ignored it, but she looked up and saw a man standing there, reaching out for the door.

"I can get it myself," she said, knowing she sounded bitter.

To her surprise, he instantly backed away, looking almost afraid of her. That jarred her out of her self pity.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to..."

He started to leave, even though she was almost positive that he was in the same class.

"Wait. _I'm_ sorry," she said. "I do need help with the door. Thank you."

He turned back to her, looking hesitant. Now that she thought of it, he looked familiar to her for some reason, although she couldn't think why.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. Thank you."

He walked back and opened the door. She rolled by him and into the classroom. As she went to her usual spot, the professor gave her an apologetic look, knowing that she hated being on display, even slightly. She looked back and saw the man walk to the back corner of the room. Throughout the class, she glanced back at him a few times. Most of the time, he was looking down, but when he was looking up it was as if he was devouring everything that was being said.

After the class was over, she saw him get up to leave and she couldn't let him go without talking to him. She rolled after him.

"Wait!" she said, calling after him, cursing the fact that she had no idea what his name was.

He stopped and turned around, unsure if she was talking to him. Delilah wheeled herself over as quickly as she could.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"Hi, I'm Delilah."

She held out her hand. He hesitated and then shook her hand, although she noticed that he pulled his hand away very quickly.

"I'm Tim," he said.

"I'm sorry that I snapped at you."

He shrugged and shook his head.

"I've had a _lot_ worse."

Something about the way he spoke told her that he wasn't exaggerating.

"I have a break. I missed breakfast, and I need to get lunch. Would you like to come with me?"

"Uh...are you sure?"

Delilah smiled. "Yes. I'll even buy since I was so rude to you."

"It's okay."

"I'm glad, but I'll still buy."

"Okay. ...I know there's a food court, but I've never gone there."

"I know where it is. It's not very far. I can tell you my story and you can tell me yours."

For a brief moment, he smiled. "What makes you think I have a story?"

"Everyone has a story," Delilah said. "Some people's get more involved than others', but I can tell you have a story, and it's probably a long one."

"You don't want the full story," he said, the smile disappearing. "It's not very pleasant."

Again, something about the way he spoke told her that he was being completely honest. In fact, he was probably understating.

"I'll listen to whatever you tell me. My story isn't very long. It's just that the effects won't ever go away. I'll tell you as we go."

"Okay."

They started off.

"I'm coming back to college because I got paralyzed. I was in a car accident. Drunk driver. He didn't get hurt at all, but I ended up in a wheelchair. Couldn't have been any worse if a bomb had gone off. I'm still bitter about it."

"I can tell."

"Yeah. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life, now that I'm stuck in this chair. I'm a lot older than the other students. I get people staring at me, and I don't want pity."

Tim didn't say anything, but he was listening, almost as intently as he had been with the professor. Delilah found herself talking more, telling him about all the plans she'd had and how they all had to change, but that she had no intention of letting this destroy her life. She was determined to take life by the horns and figure something out. Otherwise, the drunk driver would win and she wasn't letting some lousy drunk ruin her life.

They arrived at the food court and got their lunches. Then, they went back outside and found a bench for Tim to sit on.

"So that was my story. What's yours?"

Tim shrugged. "I told you that you really don't want to know."

"I do, Tim. Turn about is fair play. You listened while I talked, and I don't know if anyone has ever listened more closely to me than you did just now. I think you need someone to listen to you."

Tim smiled. "I have a psychiatrist who listens to me talk a _lot_."

That gave her some sense of how bad this story might be, but she smiled back.

"A shrink isn't the same as just talking to someone."

"No, it's not. Okay, you asked for it. I'll give you the short version and you can decide if you're too horrified to keep talking to me. If you are, no hard feelings. I've lived most of my life isolated. It's only been in the last year that I've had...people to care about me. Well, since Mary died, anyway."

"What's your story, then?" Delilah asked, her voice going more gentle. She could see, now, that Tim was also unsure about sharing his story where she was almost aggressive in sharing her own.

"When I was six years old, my dad left my mom and me for another woman. My mom became a prostitute and our house was her brothel. When I was seven, I saw her murder my father and his girlfriend and then set the house on fire. People thought I'd done it, but I didn't."

Delilah felt her eyes widen and she was amazed at how blank his expression was, how monotone his voice had become.

"We moved to a little town called Hazard. I never left it until last year. Didn't even know what the rest of the world could be like. Everyone hated me, there. I was strange. I had nightmares. I couldn't control my emotions or my mind. We were really poor. I was afraid my mom would kill me if I tried to leave, although, as an adult, I can see that she never would have. But I was just a kid and I didn't understand. Things went on like that until a few years ago when my mom died of an aneurysm. I found her, dead in her bedroom. Then, I was even poorer because I didn't have a regular job. That's when I met Mary." He smiled wistfully. "She cared about me. She tried to help me, even though she couldn't because I was so messed up. The mortician in town hired me to help him with things he could have done himself because he wanted to help, too, but it was Mary who..." He trailed off. "Anyway, the sheriff murdered her and tried to make me take the blame for it. He might have succeeded, but some people here in Lincoln went because Ducky asked them for help. Now, I'm here. I'm actually living with one of the agents who helped me, and I'm going to college for the first time." He forced a smile. "That's the short version."

Delilah tried to think of what to say. She had to say _something_. That was the kind of story that needed a response.

"Wow," she said, softly. She reached over and squeezed his hand. "I'm so sorry you had to go through all that, Tim. I'm sorry I pushed you to talk about it. I can tell you didn't want to."

He smiled more sincerely.

"You remind me of Mary a little bit. Not a lot, but there's something about you that makes me think of Mary."

"Is that a good thing?" Delilah asked.

He nodded, although she could see that there was pain attached to it as well.

"Then, I'll take it as a compliment."

"You should. But I'm like you. Trying to figure out what to do with my life. It's just that I also have to remember that I _can_ do something with my life because I spent so long thinking that I had nothing and was worth nothing."

"I have to remember that, too, sometimes," Delilah confessed. "I have to remind myself that being paralyzed doesn't mean that I'm dead."

They met each other's gaze and they both smiled. Then, Tim blushed a little and stared back down at his plate.

They ended up talking for hours, until Delilah's phone rang because her mom was expecting to pick her up.

"Tim...I'd like to do this again."

"You would?" he asked, clearly surprised.

"Yes. Very much."

"Me, too," he said, although he was still obviously a little embarrassed.

"Good. Then, I'll see you in class on Friday?"

"Okay. Yeah. Sure."

"Good."

Delilah headed off to meet her mom, feeling somehow much better about her situation than she had before. It wasn't just that Tim had faced a lot worse than she had. It was that she didn't feel like he was paying attention to her out of pity or curiosity. He couldn't believe that _she_ wanted to know _him_.

All in all, she felt that she'd made a friend today, and that was a very good thing.

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

The door opened and Tim came inside.

Gibbs was surprised at how late Tim had come back from campus. He knew that he himself was home early, but he also knew Tim's schedule (having helped him set it up in the first place). When Tim came inside, he looked at Gibbs and he actually blushed.

Gibbs raised a silent eyebrow.

"I, uh..." He stopped.

Gibbs smiled a little. "What?"

"I met a...a girl today. Her name is Delilah. She's in one of my classes. I held the door open for her because she's in a wheelchair and we had lunch together," Tim said, all in a rush.

"And you like her." It wasn't a question.

"Is it okay?"

"Of course it is. You don't need to ask permission to like someone."

Tim flushed, this time with embarrassment. It was that lingering fear that he had and _would_ have for a long time. Still, the fact that he was admitting (or almost admitting) to liking someone, and a woman at that, was major progress. Part of him wanted to warn this Delilah of what she might be getting into, but most of him was glad that Tim was starting to open up.

"She said she wants to talk to me again. Even after I told her about me."

 _That_ was a surprise. It took determined people to deal with Tim as he was. Fornell and his family had been trying and Ducky was still coming to visit on occasion, but most people found Tim a little off-putting, even at the best of times.

"That's good."

Tim nodded.

"Did you say anything in your classes today?"

Tim shook his head and looked down. "No."

"You can, you know."

He shook his head again.

"When you're ready."

Time was the key, and Tim was getting that time. Who knew how long it would take, but he was getting it, and that was important. Another year or so, and he'd look more like the intelligent adult he could be rather than the scared child he sometimes seemed.

Gibbs could admit that he would be interested to see it happen.


	50. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

It was Christmas. Tim was still living with Gibbs, and Gibbs had to admit that he actually rather enjoyed having someone else in the house, even if that someone was a man who still had some psychological issues. Eventually, Tim would be prepared to take on the world himself, but right now, he still needed extra support. He was doing better at college and even had made a couple of...acquaintances. They couldn't really be called friends at this point, but it was more than he'd ever had before. Delilah had continued to show her determination to get to know Tim better, and while Tim was still awkward, the two of them had become friends. Where it would go from here no one knew yet, but it was helping.

Later, there would be more guests. Ducky was coming for Christmas dinner. Tony and Abby were also coming (Kate had family plans). They had considered inviting the Fornells, but even after a few visits, it was still more awkward than not. The few who would be here would be enough. For now, though, it was just the two of them. Gibbs was taking a risk, he knew, but he'd decided it was worth it.

Tim came out of the bedroom. He was sleeping in the bedroom the majority of the time, although Gibbs still found him out on the couch in the morning every once in a while, even now.

"Merry Christmas," Gibbs said.

Tim's eyes widened, as if he'd forgotten the day. It was possible that he had since he had confessed that Christmas (and pretty much every other holiday) had mostly passed him by in Hazard.

"Oh, yeah. Merry Christmas."

Gibbs picked up a package and handed it to him.

"For me?"

"Yeah."

"I...didn't buy anyone anything. I...forgot the day."

"That's all right. There's always next year."

Tim smiled at the suggestion, and Gibbs gestured for him to get on with it.

Tim sat down on the couch and looked at the package. He ran his hands over it for a few seconds and then carefully removed the paper. Then, he stared at what was in his lap.

It was a scarf.

Gibbs hadn't tried to find a scarf that looked like the scarf he'd had before. In fact, he had tried to make it look _different_ from the scarf. Tim had clearly treasured the idea behind the scarf, the promise of things getting better, but the scarf itself had become a murder weapon. Gibbs wasn't going to use it to make a promise or anything. He just wanted to give Tim a gift that would mean something to him. They would both know the significance.

Tim didn't say anything for a few minutes. Gibbs didn't push him to speak. He picked up the scarf and ran it through his fingers. It was a solid dark blue. He probably wouldn't want to wear it during the summer. All the better, as far as Gibbs was concerned. It was important, but it was just a scarf.

Finally, Tim looked up at him.

"It's not the same," he said.

"No. Didn't want it to be."

"Me neither," Tim said.

"Do you like it?"

"I think so."

Gibbs smiled. "Good."

"Thank you," Tim said.

"You're welcome."

x.x.x.x.x.x.x

Ducky, Tony and Abby would be there soon, but he had a little while, and Tim decided to take the time to read. The book he chose wasn't a normal one. It was a scanned copy of a book. It wasn't the complete thing, but it was what he needed.

It was Mary's diary.

Gibbs had given him some of the pages of her diary, not all, he'd said. Tim didn't need to read everything, but some of the things Mary had written about him. Gibbs had said it was important for Tim to see what she had thought. Now, he pulled it out and opened to a page.

He'd read it before.

 _Sometimes, when I look at Tim, I see so much potential in his eyes. I think he must be really smart. Some of the things he says are just so intelligent that I figure his IQ must be off the charts. I don't know what he sees when he looks at me, but I hope that, of anything he could see, he sees a friend. I just wish I could help him more than I have because I know he needs it. If only someone else in this place would see the same thing I see. If only someone else would take the time to see it._

 _I never wanted to come back to Hazard, but I think I'm glad I did, at least as far as Tim is concerned. If I can help him at all, then, I've done something that most people don't get to do._

Tim looked up from the book and thought about Mary as he'd seen her that first day. She had seemed to be a goddess, coming to him from another world. She had saved him, although he hadn't realized it at the time and she probably hadn't, either. If he could have, he would have traded that salvation for her life, but she had been the first person who had indicated that it was possible to care about strange Tim McGee.

Now, he was doing the things he had told her he wanted to do. He had escaped the confines of Hazard. He was slowly throwing off years of repression, coming out of a shell he had always assumed was permanent. Would she be happy for him?

"Yes," he said softly to himself.

Mary would have been happy for him.

He could be happy for himself.

He heard the front door slam and cheerful voices of people talking amongst themselves.

"Tim! They're here!"

Tim looked at the page of Mary's diary. Then, he looked at the scarf Gibbs had given him just a few hours ago. The past and the future right before his eyes.

Finally, he set the book down and picked up the scarf.

"I'm coming!"

Then, he went out to greet these people who had become his friends.

FINIS!


End file.
